CLU33341 Greek Epic

The Iliad and Odyssey are at the roots of the Western literary tradition: they formed the basis of Greek education and were central models for all later authors. This module provides a consolidation of Classical Greek language, reading and analysis skills (grammar, pragmatics, translation, philological, critical and critical theory skills). The module will  introduces you to the idiom, style and thought of the Homeric epics. You will study selections from both epics in Greek and learn the Homeric ‘dialect.’ You also study both epics in translation, explore wider aspects of poetics, representation and knowledge, reading the poems as sophisticated orally-derived narrative traditions, and analyse their (fictional) worlds, values and practices, aspects of social order, the relationships between men, women and gods, voice, characterization, time and consciousness, as well as features of Homeric style such as similes, type-scenes and structured repetition (and so-called formulaic diction).