Tentative Class Topics for Iliad, Odyssey, Aeneid Classes
Iliad Topics
Quick Summary of the Topics
Scope: Set of 12 introduces the Iliad, first of the epics of ancient Greece (Iliad
& Odyssey).
To appreciate the classes, read the whole of the Iliad, Odyssey, & Aeneid
as we proceed.
We'll look at the most important episodes, various critical and interpretative issues,
and background information on the cultural assumptions found in each of the epics.
1. summary of the mythological background assumed in the epics.
2. the 400 to 500-year gap between the events described in both epics and when
they were written down. The epics’ relation to traditional
orally-transmitted poetry,
and the implications of that oral tradition for the question of
who "Homer" was.
[3 through 12: consider the plot, characters, and interpretations of the Iliad
itself.
Each of these focuses on a particular scene, character, or them.]
3. the cultural concepts of kleos
(glory) and time
(honor) and their significance
for understanding the wrath of Achilles.
4. inside the walls of Troy, discussion of Homer’s presentation of the Trojans
as sympathetic characters, not stereotypical enemies.
5. Bk IX, where three of Achilles’ comrades try to persuade him to return to
battle;
how the concepts of kleos
and time
factor into his refusal to do so.
6. the concept of kleos
explained more fully, as one of the
key elements in the Iliad’s
examination of the human condition.
7. the gods in Homer, what types of beings they are and what their presence
in the story adds to the Iliad.
8. and 9, a detailed reading of the most important events of the day of
Hektor’s glory
and Patroklos’ death, the Iliad’s longest day
(it lasts from Bk XI through Bk XVIII.
8.: focuses on Hektor and 9. on Patroklos.
10. Achilles’ return to battle, and the implications of his actions, his
divinely-made armor,
and his refusal to bury the dead Patroklos.
11. a look at Hektor and Achilles together, highlighting the contrasting elements
in their characters and the inevitability of their final
encounter in battle.
12. the resolution of the Iliad, which is brought about by Achilles’
encounter with the father
of his dead enemy, Hektor’s aged father, King Priam.
Throughout the study of the epic we will hear again and again the
overriding theme
of what it means to be human and what the Iliad has to say
about the human condition.
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Topic One: Introduction to Homeric Epic
Scope: 3 main sections
1. Why read them: definitions of ‘epic’, place in
literary history, why popular still.
2. Outline, explain format, approach: plot synopsis, Epics’
cultural background,
and some of the larger issues
raised by the Epics.
3. Brief overview of story of Trojan War, crucial narrative background.
Questions:
1. Myths such as the story of the Trojan War, which "everyone
knew," provided
a stock of common reference points
against which the Greeks could map their
everyday experiences, frame moral
questions, and so on. Does modern American
culture have any similar set of
common reference points?
2. The Epics use the stories they tell to meditate on great
over-reaching themes, such as
the nature of mortality. Can
the same be said of all great literature? Put another way,
can a story told simply for the
sake of the story qualify as ‘literature’?
Topic Two - The Homeric Question
Scope:
1. How these Epics were created, and what their function was in
their own society.
the historical background of the "Homeric Question";
i.e., Are the Iliad and Odyssey
works of one creative genius, or are they conglomerations of
shorter poems?
2. Evidence the epics were grounded in a tradition of oral
composition;
what effect the implications of this has for their
creation for the very existence of "Homer".
Questions:
1. Many modern ‘Unitarians’ find something very disturbing in
the idea there was
no Homer. Consider whether it makes
a difference in our appreciation of the epics
if they were the culmination of a
tradition?
2. Some reject the ‘compromise’ position in I.C.3., because
they think it is impossible
that anyone could
remember word for word, a text as long as the Iliad.
Are there any modern analogues?
What modern types of performance resemble
the "oral composition"
model of Parry?
Topic Three - Glory, Honor, and the Wrath of Achilles.
Scope:
1. The in medias res beginning; how the opening scenes
identify the primary subject
matter of the poem from the very beginning.
On the simplest level, the Iliad is
about the wrath of Achilles; on a more complex
level, this anger is the narrative device by which the bard can
discuss wider themes,
among them mortality, the human condition, and how the warrior
ethos affects what
it means to be human.
2. Since Achilles’ anger and its
implications can only be properly understood
in the context of its own cultural background, we
examine and define key concepts
of time
(honor) and kleos
(fame/glory), which will be crucial.
Questions:
1. Some readers see a ‘spoiled brat’, who does not want
to play any more when
things are not going his way.
In the context of a ‘shame
culture’, does this interpretation make any sense?
2. Why do you think the bard chose to focus on the quarrel rather than
on a more
obvious highlight legend (i.e.,
the Sack))?
Topic Four - Within the Walls of Troy
Scope:
1. Homer’;s portrayal of the Trojans is sympathetic,
three-dimensional.
He shows them, not as villains, but rather in a war which is a
terrible tragedy for them,
one they never sought. They fight not just for time
and kleos
but for their lives and
their country’s survival. Our view of them is colored by
knowledge they will be defeated.
2. Two crucial scenes – Priam/Helen, and Hektor/Andromache,
both how the portrayal
of these characters adds to our overall picture of the war, and how our
knowledge
of events outside the Iliad heightens
the pathos of these scenes.
Questions:
1. Consider the "dual motivation" of Helen going to bed with
Paris, despite saying
she no longer likes him.. On one
level, Helen can simply say "Aphrodite made
me do it"; can her action be
understood in modern psychological terms as well?
2. The Iliad is a Greek epic, for a Greek
audience, and the Trojans’ downfall
is inevitable. Explain how the
impact of the story would differ if Priam, Hektor,
and Andromache were portrayed as
unsympathetic characters.
Topic Five - The Embassy to Achilles
Scope:
1. Bk IX: The battle continues to go badly for the Greeks,
Achilles’ absence more and more
serious for them. On Nestor’s advice, Agamemnon
decides to try to persuade
Achilles to return to battle. Agamemnon admits he was
wrong, sends Odysseus,
Phoenix, Aias (Ajax) to speak n his behalf, especially
to describe gifts he will offer.
Achilles refuses to accept Agamemnon’s gifts, and in terms
that call into question
the whole time-
and kleos-
based structure of his society.
2. The arguments that the three make, Achilles’s reasons for
rejecting them,
and the implications of his rejection for our understanding of
his character.
Questions:
1. Explain the implications of Achilles’ stated intention to choose a long,
inglorious
life over death in battle. Why can
this be described as a rejection of his culture’s
entire system of mores?
2.
Why does Aias’ appeal to Achilles succeed, at least partially, where Odysseus and
Phoenix fail?
Topic Six - The Paradox of Glory
Scope:
1. A look in detail at the concept of kleos
and its crucial thematic importance for the Iliad.
kleos
is the only kind of immortality available to Homeric warrior, and is of the utmost
importance; every major warrior strives for it, often in a
type scene of battle-prowess
called an aristeia.
But kleos
can be gained only by dying or by killing. Thus a kind
of paradox lies at the heart of the Iliad’s depiction
of the warrior’s quest for kleos.
2. Through an examination of the essential duality of Achilles’
character, we see how he is
the best representative of this paradox of kleos.
Finally, how the gods’ immortality
makes them unable to gain kleos in this
sense.
Questions:
1. Is the choice of fates offered to Achilles a genuine choice?
Could he really decide simply to
quit fighting and return home to his father Peleus?
2. Do you agree that mortality, i.e., impermanence, is the
essential defining hallmark
of human life, or do you think that
our culture’s view of this is essentially different
from the view portrayed in the Iliad
?
Topic Seven - The Role of the Gods
Scope:
1. What effect the gods’ appearance as active participants has on
the narrative.
2. The gods’ essential nature and what kind of beings they are,
and how,
in Homer’s treatment of them, the essential contrast of
immortality and mortality
operates to enhance the Iliad’s portrait of the human
condition and its implications.
3. The topic of fate (moira)
and its workings with respect to the gods.
Questions:
1. What are the implications of culture of believing in gods who are neither
transcendent
nor omniscient?
2. Many people have tried to extrapolate a consistent, complete view of
the workings
of moira
from the Iliad. Is it reasonable to expect such a concept to work
consistently?
Topic Eight - The Longest Day
Scope:
1. Bks XI-XV: A comparison of gods and mortals by examining the
dual narratives,
divine and human, which lead up to and feature Hektor’s aristeia.
2. It is possible to extract a coherent narrative which excludes
the god’s interventions,
and see the progress of the battle as it would have seemed
to the participants.
3. But in the privileged view of the action given to us as
Homer’s audience,
we also see an unusually complex and detailed narrative of the
gods’ actions
intertwined with the human narrative. Once again, this dual level
of action stresses
the nature and meaning of human mortality.
Questions:
1. Explain how the impact of this section of the Iliad would
suffer if the gods’
interventions were removed.
2. Hera’s seduction of Zeus strikes some as out of place in this
section of the Iliad.
Its tone seems inappropriate to the
surrounding battle narratives.
What do you make of the tone of
that scene?
Topic Nine - The Death of Patroklos
Scope:
Reading: Bks XVI-XVII: A crucial turning point of the
Iliad. Events leading to Achilles’
return, the killing of Hektor, and the eventual resolution in the
Iliad’s final book.
1. Patroklos’ character and his role as
Achilles’ substitute in battle.
2. Patroklos’ aristeia and death,
noting how the death of Zeus’ son Sarpedon
at Patroklos’ hands prefigures Hektor’s later death
and, outside the narrative framework
of the Iliad, the death of Achilles himself.
3. How the scene in which Hektor kills Patroklos highlights
both these characters’
human ignorance, as opposed to Achilles’ foreknowledge of
his fate.
4. Interpretation of the scene in which Zeus pities the immortal horses of Achilles
as they weep for the dead Patroklos.
Questions:
1. At lines 686-691, the poet comments that if Patroklos had only
listened to Achilles
and not tried to scale the wall, he
would have escaped. How does this fit in with
the idea that all these events are
fated, that Patroklos must do so Achilles will return
to fight Hektor?
2. Bk XVII shows Zeus pitying Sarpedon, Hektor, and Achilles’
horses.
What purpose do you think is served
by this? Why do we see Zeus feeling more
pity here than elsewhere in the Iliad?
Topic Ten - Achilles Returns to Battle
Scope:
1. Achilles’ reaction to Patroklos’ death, his reentry
into battle.
How Patroklos’ death changes Achilles; no longer withdrawn
from battle, he is fixated
on vengeance. Homer describes Achilles’ informal
return to battle in the scene that
ends Hektor’s day of glory, and his late formal
return after he gets the armor made
by Hephaistos.
2. Examination of the dual treatment of
Achilles in this section of the Iliad.
He is described in vocabulary and imagery
appropriate to a dead person,
and thus is in some way treated as though he were already dead;
but at the same time,
Achilles is surrounded with fire imagery and with descriptions of
battle prowess
that are more appropriate to a god than to a human.
This dual portrait of Achilles
stresses his refusal to accept Patroklos’ death
and, in a larger sense, to accept mortality itself.
Questions:
1. What is the significance of the scenes that appear on Achilles’
shield?
Are they connected o the wider
themes of the Iliad?
2. After the stress throughout on Achilles’ anger at Agamemnon and
his refusal
to accept Agamemnon’s gifts,
do you find his sudden change of heart
in XIX believable? Why? or
Why not?
Topic Eleven - Achilles and Hektor.
Scope:
1. The characters of Achilles and Hektor. Both Homer’s
characterization of the two
and their interactions with one another. The Iliad
presents Achilles and Hektor
as polar opposites to one another in several key ways: note
several of these contrasts,
and how they underscore Hektor’s place in his
community and Achilles’ essential isolation.
2. The scene in which Achilles kills Hektor, and how this
conflict of opposites is crucial
for the final resolution of the Iliad.
Questions:
1. Compare the characters of Thetis and Hekabe. how do their
similarities and
differences enhance the contrast
between their sons?
2. Compare Achilles’ words to the dying Hektor with Hektor’s
words to the dying
Patroklos in XVI. What do
these two speeches tell us about the speakers?
Topic Twelve - Enemies’ Tears: Achilles and Priam
Scope:
1. The meeting of Achilles and Priam, and the final
resolution of the Iliad.
Even after he kills Hektor, Achilles is still unreconciled to
Patroklos’ death;
at the request of Patroklos’ ghost, Achilles gives him a
funeral, but remains unconsoled
and isolated from humanity. Only the visit of Priam to
ransom Hektor’s body can
reintegrate Achilles into the human community.
2. The meeting
between these two enemies, Achilles and Priam, and the impact
of their encounter
for our understanding of the nature of mortality, the underlying theme of the Iliad.
Questions:
1. Is it psychologically credible that Priam’s grief should move
Achilles to acceptance
of mortality and reintegration into
humanity? Why, or why not?
2. Does the final book of the Iliad provide a resolution for the
issues raised
in the earlier part of the
work? For example? What is the role of kleos
here?
Is any implicit answer ever given
to the objections Achilles raises in Bk IX? Where?
Back to
the Iliad Page
Back to the Syllabus
Page
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Epic Page
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Odyssey Topics
Quick Summary:
1. Heroes’ Homecomings
Events that took place between the 2 epics, two primary types of epic,
kleos epic
and nostos
epic;
the opening lines; the effect of complicated chronology and
narrative structure.
2. Guests and Hosts
Examine the key cultural concept of xenia,
its importance both for the Odyssey
as a whole and for first four books, which focus on Telemachos.
3. A Goddess and a Princess
First view of Odysseus, key elements in his character, especially
his caution,
his great rhetorical skill, his longing for his own homecoming (nostos).
4. Odysseus among the Phaiakians
Odysseus’ interactions with the Phaiakians, who will help
him on his way home;
the opening of the great 1st person narrative of his
travels, for 4 full books.
5. Odysseus Tells His Own Story
6. From Persephone’s Land to the Island of Helios.
In these two books continue the examination of that 1st person
narrative,
identifying and analyzing Odysseus’ motivations in telling
the story and its effect
on his audiences both inside and outside the epic.
7. The Goddess, the Swineherd, and the Beggar.
A close look at Odysseus’ long-delayed return to Ithaka and
his meeting there
with the goddess Athena.
8. Reunion and Return
His reunion with his son and its implications; his return to his
palace in disguise
as an old beggar.
9. Odysseus and Penelope
A look at Odysseus’ conversation with his wife Penelope, and
the crucial critical
question of whether Penelope recognizes this ‘beggar’
as her husband.
Narrative significance of the scene in which Odysseus’ old
nurse Eurykleia
recognizes him from a scar on his thigh.
10. Recognitions and Revenge
The scene of vengeance in which Odysseus kills the suitors who
have been
plaguing his wife Penelope.
11. Reunion and Resolution
The final reunion of Odysseus and Penelope and the end of the Odyssey.
12. The Trojan War and the Archaeologists.
Epilogue: the issue of the historicity of the Trojan War.
Recent archaeological
evidence for an actual conflict, and the possible relationship
between that event
in C12 and the legendary war as described in C8 epics.
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Topic One - Heroes’ Homecomings
Scope:
1. Reading: Bk 1: Overview of events in
traditional Trojan War story happening
after the Iliad. The Odyssey assumes in its
audience complete familiarity
with the story, including Iliad.
2. The difference between kleos
epic, with primary focus on glory, and nostos
epic,
focusing instead on homecoming.
3. Examination of the structure of the Odyssey itself, its very
complicated chronological arrangement.
4. Consideration of the overall narrative effect of Odysseus’
delayed entry into the story.
Questions:
1. What is the impact of the Odyssey’s complicated
chronological structure,
with its doubling back on itself
and extended flashback? Would the impact
of the story be different if the Odyssey,
like the Iliad, were told in straight order?
2. Compare the proems of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
What differences of tone and
approach, if any, do you find in them?
Topic Two - Guests and Hosts
Scope:
1. Reading Bks 2-4: Defines and examines xenia,
the concept of key importance
for understanding the Odyssey. Often translated
as‘the guest-host relationship",
xenia is major theme throughout
Odysseus’ wanderings.
2. A look at the way in which xenia permeates the first 4 bks and the
effect this has
on the audience’s understanding of the characters of Telemachos and the suitors.
3. Examine how conventions of xenia allow bard to
integrate Nestor and Menelaos
into his story, by sending Telemachos to visit them and establish
a bond of xenia with them.
4. Notice two other important narrative elements that are established
in the Telemachy:
the use of Agamemnon’s story as paradigm for Odysseus’
own, and Telemachos’
need to assert his maturity.
Questions:
1. Telemachos is often described as being unrealistically immature; he
must be
20 years old by the time the Odyssey
opens. Does the charge of immaturity
seem valid, or is Telemachos a
realistic portrait of a young man in his situation?
2. Why does Athena send Telemachos off to visit Nestor and Menelaos,
instead of simply telling him that
his father is almost home?
Topic - A Goddess and a Princess
Scope:
1. Readings Od 5-6 : Look at
Odysseus himself as a character in the Odyssey.
Odysseus’ first appearance in Bk 5 and his interaction with
Kalypso,
as well as his encounter with the Phaiakian princess Nausikaa in
Bk 6.
2. Aspects of Odysseus’ character that are highlighted in these
two books.
In 5, his desire to return home as a desire to reestablish his
own identity;
in both books, Odysseus as a superbly skilled rhetorician, who is
able to craft
his speech to appeal to whomever he is addressing.
3. Notice the
continuing thematic importance of xenia
in Nausikaa’s welcome
of Odysseus in Bk 6.
Questions:
1. What is the point of including Nausikaa’s story in the epic? Is
she purely
incidental to the narrative, or
does her encounter with Odysseus serve
some thematic function?
2. Consider the implications of Odysseus’ refusal to accept
Kalypso’s offer
of immortality. What does this
refusal imply about Odysseus’ view
of what it means to be human, as
compared to Achilles in the Iliad?
Topic - Odysseus among the Phaiakians
Scope:
1. Reading Bks 7-9: The story continues to
follow Odysseus’ interactions
with the Phaiakians, and moves on into the beginnings of his own
great narrative
of his past adventures.
2. Several key themes, including the
continued importance of xenia as offered
by the Phaiakians and how the conception of kleos
in the Odyssey differs
from that of the Iliad.
3 The role of the bard Demodokos in Bk 8, and how his
appearance at this point
of the narrative may reflect the original three-day performance
structure of the Odyssey.
4. Bk 9, Odysseus first-person narrative, how the encounter with the
Cyclops Polyphemos
both shows Odysseus at his most clever and quick-thinking and
causes
all his subsequent troubles.
Questions:
1. Demodokos’ second song, story of Ares, Aphrodite’s love
affair, is it merely
entertainment, or is it connected
thematically with the rest of the epic.
2. Do you think Odysseus’ telling Polyphemos his name is an
instance
of reckless pride, or is he
justified in doing so?
Topic Five - Odysseus Tells His Own Story
Scope:
1. Reading Bks 10-11: Still on the wanderings.
See how quickly Polyphemos’ curse
takes effect, how Odysseus is tormented by sailing within sight
of Ithaka, but then being
driven away from it again.
2. Odysseus’ encounter with
Circe, some of the implications of the sexual double standard
reflected in it and in the rest of
the Odyssey.
3. The first half of the
pivotal episodes of the Wanderings, and the trip to Hades.
Odysseus’ conversations there, especially with the prophet
Teiresias and with his own mother
Antikleia, and note how for the first time in the Odyssey
Odysseus himself is warned about
the suitors. The abrupt break in the narrative where the
poem returns briefly to the third-
person narrative, and the reasons for and effects of that break.
Questions:
1. Odysseus stays a year with Circe, and apparently is not particularly
eager
to leave her. Contrast this with
the image we get of him in Bks 1 and 5,
where he longs desperately to
return to Ithaka; is the mere passage of time
enough to explain the difference,
or is his character simply inconsistent in this regard?
2. Does Teiresias’ prophecy about Thrinakia and Helios’
cattle in effect offer
Odysseus and his men a choice of
two fates, similar to the two fates Achilles
chose between in the Iliad?
In a wider sense, is the overall
picture of moira
consistent between the two epics?
Topic Six - From Persephone’s Land to the Island of Helios
Scope:
1. Reading: Bk 11, lines 375-end; Bk 12: Continue
Odysseus’ narrative of his journey to Hades.
Note the elements in the Hades narrative that seem particularly
designed to enchant
Odysseus’ Phaiakian audience, and then consider the question
of Odysseus’ veracity
in these accounts of his adventures.
2. The final episode of the "Great Wanderings", the
killing of Helios’ cattle and the death
of all Odysseus’ remaining companions.
3. How Odysseus manages
to explain his survival, implying that he bears no responsibility
for his men’s
deaths; thus, once again Odysseus’ skill in rhetoric is emphasized
by the bard.
Questions:
1. Is it possible to make sense out of the narrative of the Odyssey
if we assume
that every supernatural adventure
Odysseus narrates in the Wanderings is a lie?
Are there any elements of the story
that are vouched for by "Homer"
as narrator of the Odyssey?
Can you work out any consistent
standard to judge when Odysseus is telling
the truth and when he may be lying?
What?
2. In the proem the poet says that Odysseus’ comrades were
"fools", destroyed
by "their own reckless
actions", because they ate Helios’ cattle.
Does this seem consistent with
their story as it is presented in Bk 12?
Topic Seven - The Goddess, the Swineherd, and the Beggar
Scope:
1. Bks 13-15: second half of Odyssey: change in
pace and subject matter in the "Ithakan"
books. From Bk 13 on the narrative pace much slower, and the
challenges Odysseus
faces are very different from those we have seen earlier.
2. Odysseus’ arrival on Ithaka, the significance for xenia
of the formulaic lines he speaks here
for the third time, his encounter with the disguised Athena, and
their plan for his vengeance
on the suitors. Odysseus’ arrival, in
disguise, at the hut of his loyal swineherd, Eumaios,
and the xenia
he receives there.
Questions:
1. Compare Athena’s conversation with Odysseus with gods’
interactions
with humans in the Iliad.
What similarities and differences do you see?
2. Odysseus lies about who he is to Athena, and again to Eumaios.
What do you make of his willingness
to resort to lies as soon as he is back
on Ithaka? Does it have any
significance for our understanding of Odysseus’
character in the first half of the Odyssey?
What?
Topic Eight - Reunion and Return
Scope:
1. Bks 16-17, Odysseus’ reunion with his son and his entry,
still disguised as a beggar,
into his own palace. Throughout this section the poet stresses
Odysseus’ emotional
trials; he must not show joy at the sight of his son, anger at
the evil goatherd
Melanthios, or sorrow at the death of his dog Argos.
2. Each
encounter reiterates Odysseus’ supreme self-control and moves him closer
to his
utmost danger, being in the palace with the suitors, and his utmost trial,
reunion with Penelope.
Questions:
1. Do symbolic readings, such as the explanation of the Argos scene,
depend on there being one author?
Could such symbolism develop in a traditional
system such as supposed
by the Analysts?
2. Why does Odysseus say so little to Telemachos when he identifies
himself?
Would this not be a time for a
long, fluent, rhetorically brilliant speech
if ever there were such a time?
Topic Nine - Odysseus and Penelope
Scope:
1. Reading: 18-19: Two lengthy conversations
between the disguised Odysseus
and Penelope in Bk 19, and the scene that separates those
conversations,
in which Eurykleia recognizes Odysseus.
2. The setting of Odysseus’ and Penelope’s
encounter, and the implications
of the fact that they are not alone as they speak.
3. The Eurykleia scene: explains the significance both of
Odysseus’ scar and
of his name, and the importance of his name’s meaning
("Giver/Receiver of Pain")
for the entire Odyssey.
4. Finally, the great critical
issue of Bk19: whether or not Penelope recognizes
that the beggar is her husband.
Questions:
1. Since Odysseus’ scar is so distinctive and Eurykleia is bound
to recognize it,
many readers have been troubled by
Odysseus’ asking for ‘an old woman’
to wash his feet. Can you think of
an explanation? What?
2. Choose one side of the "what does Penelope know"
controversy and construct
the strongest argument you can to
support your position. Is there any narrative
element still left unaccounted for
by your analysis? What?
Topic Ten - Recognitions and Revenge
Scope:
1. Reading: 20-22: The ‘contest of the bow’,
Odysseus’ revelation of his identity
to the loyal slaves Eumaios and Philoitios, and the slaughter of
the suitors.
2. Penelope’s knowledge and motives, narrative strategies
the bard uses for increasing
the sense of inevitability as the suitors’ doom approaches.
The importance of xenia
once again, whether Odysseus’ slaughter of the suitors
and the disloyal slave women
is justified or not.
Questions:
1. It has been argued that Odysseus’ punishment of the suitors and
the disloyal
women is justified, considered
within the context of the epic itself.
Does the vengeance seem excessive
to you? Why?
2. The effect of Athena’s intervention in the battle, where she
makes the suitors’
spear casts useless but ensures
that Odysseus’ and his comrades’
are lethal. Does Athena’s
involvement here make the outcome seem all the more
inevitable (cf the
gods’ interventions in the Iliad), or does it take away from Odysseus’
credit?
Topic Eleven - Reunion and Resolution
Scope:
1. Reading: Bks 23-24: Final reunion of Odysseus and
Penelope in 23, and resolution
of several themes in 24.
2. The famous ‘sign’ of
Odysseus’ and Penelope’s bed,
and the symbolic and narrative importance that it holds. Bk
24:
3. The issue of whether or not that book belongs to the original Odyssey,
and
several key ways in which Bk. 24 resolves issues that would otherwise be left incomplete.
4. The ‘Second Nekuia’ that opens 24, then Odysseus’ encounter with his father
Laertes,
and the two reunions.
5. Finally, the ending of the Odyssey, and whether or not it
is effective.
Questions:
1. If Penelope has recognized the beggar as her husband, her refusal to
believe
Eurykleia’s words at the
beginning of Bk 23 is very puzzling. How can one
reconcile that refusal with an
interpretation arguing that Penelope has already
recognized the beggar?
2. When Odysseus encounters Laertes, there is no longer any danger and
no longer
any need for him to be careful or
deceitful. Why does the bard make Odysseus
decide to lie to his father?
Topic Twelve - The Trojan War and the Archaeologists
Scope:
1. The question of whether the War has any historical basis.
2. After a brief history of this question, the story of
Schliemann’s C19 excavations
at Hissarlik and Mycenae.
3. Some of the issues still
left unresolved by those excavations.
4. Some of the reasons for Schliemann’s
controversial status, both in his own day
and among modern archaeologists.
5. Later
discoveries at Troy by Dorpfeld, Blegen, and current excavators.
Questions:
1. Does it matter for our appreciation whether or not the Trojan War
ever happened?
2. If Schliemann had not romanticized his descriptions would those
findings have
excited much interest? Why?
Back to
the Odyssey
Page
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Page
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Epic Page
==========================================================================
Aeneid Topics
The Aeneid of Virgil - Quick Summary Outline
Scope:
An Outline of twelve topics to introduce the great epic of ancient Rome,
the Aeneid. A careful look at the most important episodes in each epic,
various critical and interpretative issues, and background information
on the cultural assumptions contained in the epic.
Here is a summary
of the individual topics we will at least mention:
1. an introduction to the Aeneid and the overall plan .
2. two types of background material, mythic and literary; a brief summary
of the legends of the Trojan War and of Romulus and Remus;
the Aeneid's literary antecedents.
3. the historical context in which the Aeneid was written, a brief
description
of Augustus' rule and the wars that led up to it.
(4 - 12. Four through Twelve discuss the Aeneid itself. )
4. Bk I, particularly the crucial concepts and characters in that book.
5. Aeneas' own description of the Sack of Troy and his subsequent wanderings,
as he recounts them in Bks II and III.
6. the love affair between Aeneas and Dido, Queen of Carthage, in Book IV
and the critical question of how we should interpret Aeneas '
actions in that book.
7. from Carthage to Sicily in Bk V, and of Book VI, Aeneas' journey to the
Underworld.
8. More on Aeneas in the Underworld, focusing on his encounters
with Dido, Deiphobus, and his father, Anchises.
Bks VII-VIII bring Aeneas to Latium, introduce several crucial
characters,
(Latinus and Turnus), and begin the Trojans ' war with the
Latins.
9. Bks IX and X, the most "Iliadic" section, and Aeneas' character.
10. Bks XI, XII, how the narrative builds towards Turnus ' death at Aeneas ' hands.
11. the role of the gods in the Aeneid, & how the gods interact with fate.
12. one of the most important scholarly issues of the Aeneid, whether Aeneas
is justified in his actions at the end of the epic;
overview of the Aeneid's influence on later western
literature.
===============================================
Topic One: Introduction
Scope:
Overall plan of the course: three main points.
1. what the Aeneid is and why it is still worth reading,
2,000 years after its creation.
2. outline and explanation of the approach.
3. a brief overview of Roman culture's relationship to Greek culture,
from which it borrowed a great deal in art,
literature, and even religion.
Finally, the Romans' attitudes toward Greek culture.
Questions to Consider:
1. The Romans ' attitude toward Greek culture has often been compared to
the Americans' attitude toward
Europe, especially Britain, earlier in this
century. Does this comparison
strike you as valid?
2. Can you think of any other nations that have adapted their religious
narratives wholesale from another
culture?
If so, what was the attitude of the
borrowing" religion toward
the "source" culture?
Topic Two - From Aeneas to Romulus
Scope:
Covers two types of background material, mythic
and literary.
1. Brief overview of two crucial aspects of the Aeneid's
mythological background:
2. The Greek Trojan War story and the Roman story of Rome's
foundation by Romulus.
3. How the Aeneid integrates these two strands of
legend.
4. The Aeneid's literary antecedents, both
Greek and Latin.
Questions to Consider:
1. Why do you think the Romans wanted to provide a Trojan ancestor
for themselves? In other
words, what was the psychological and/or
emotional value to Roman culture of
tracing its own descent from the Trojans?
2. Roman authors obviously did not share modern views about originality
and
plagiarism; in fact, an author's
skill in adapting and referring to earlier originals
contributed a great deal to the
admiration accorded that author.
What does this tell you about the
Romans' (and for that matter the Greeks')
view of creativity and of
tradition?
Topic Three - Rome, Augustus, and Virgil
Scope:
1. Historical context in which the Aeneid was written,
briefly examining Roman history,
especially the crucial events of the late first century BC.
2. The political and social reforms made by the
emperor Augustus and his role
as a patron of poets. Finally, Virgil himself, the task he set
himself in writing the Aeneid,
and his method of composition.
Questions to Consider:
1. Why do you think Virgil chose not to write an epic about recent events
and Augustus himself?
What is gained by the setting in
the remote, mythological past?
2. Why would a return to old-style morality and values have seemed
so
appealing to Augustus and
presumably to his supporters) in the 20s BC?
Topic Four - The Opening of the Aeneid
Scope:
Aeneid itself, focusing on Bk I.
1. How the Aeneid's
proem stresses both its debt to and its difference from Homer.
2. Several of the
crucial ideas and characters introduced in Bk I.
3. How the Aeneid's
opening scenes emphasize and highlight the main themes,
(the necessity and
inevitability of Rome's foundation, the anger of Juno,
Aeneas as a man marked
out by fate, and especially the concept of pietas
or duty).
Questions to Consider:
1. What impact does our first view of Aeneas, as a despairing
"private"
individual, have on our view of the
overall tone of the poem?
Would it make any difference if we
had met the "public" Aeneas first?
2. Does modern American culture have any concept or group of concepts
analogous to pietas?
Topic Five - From Troy to Carthage
Scope:
1. Aeneas' first-person narrative (Bks II and III) of the fall of Troy
and his subsequent
wanderings.
2. Bk II, the fullest account of the Sack of Troy that
has survived from ancient literature.
3. Note, once again, the similarities and differences of Bks II and
III to their Homeric model.
4. How Aeneas' narratives of the gods' involvement in the Sack of
Troy and of the prophecies
he receives on his journey underline and reiterate his destined
role as the ultimate founder
of the Roman people.
Questions to Consider:
1. In Bks II and III, Aeneas is speaking to Dido. How would his
story
of the loss of Creusa affect Dido?
2. Why do you think Virgil chose to make Aeneas follow Odysseus'
journey
so closely, while at the same time
adding details (such as the abandonment
of Achaemenides in Sicily) that are
not in Homer?
What impression does this give us
of Odysseus? Of Aeneas?
Topic Six - Unhappy Dido
Scope:
1. Bk IV of the Aeneid, which narrates the unhappy love
affair of Aeneas and Dido.
2. Structure of the book, Virgil's presentation of the two
characters involved,
and the ( unresolved) critical question of how we are
supposed to interpret
Aeneas' actions in this section of the Aeneid.
Questions to Consider:
1. How do you read Aeneas' character in Bk IV? Does he strike you
as brutally callous, genuinely
anguished, but bound by his destiny,
or as somewhere between those
two poles?
2. Is Dido blameworthy, given that her passion for Aeneas was caused
by Juno and Venus?
Topic Seven - Funeral Games and a Journey to the Dead
Scope:
1. Aeneas leaves Carthage and returns to Sicily.
2. How Bk V
provides an interlude between the intense emotions of Bk IV and Bk VI
3. How, in
its description of the funeral games held for Anchises, it also reiterates
the themes of the Trojan past and the Roman future.
4. The beginning of Bk VI, in which
Aeneas will undertake his journey to the land of the dead.
We see him begin that
journey with the assistance of the Cumaean Sibyl.
5. End with Aeneas' and the
Sibyl's crossing of the River Styx into the Underworld proper.
Questions to Consider:
1. Why does Juno incite the Trojan women to bum their ships? Is she
still angry
for the same reasons mentioned in
Bk I, or does she have an added motivation?
2. What is the significance of Aeneas' journey to the Underworld?
Is Virgil simply
recapitulating the Odyssey here - Odysseus visits the dead,
so Aeneas must also - is there
a deeper significance to the episode?
Topic Eight - Italy and the Future
Scope:
Aeneas' journey to the Underworld (continued):
1. the encounters
he has there with Dido, Deiphobus, and with his father Anchises.
2. the thematic importance
of the "Pageant of Roman Heroes" seen by Anchises
and Aeneas and the
critical problems associated with the end of Bk VI and the two gates of sleep.
3. Bks VII and VIII, which narrate
Aeneas' arrival in Latium and the beginnings
of his war with the Latins.
4. Bk VII's function as a "second
beginning" for the Aeneid.
See how Bk VIII reiterates our sense of Aeneas'
divinely sanctioned mission
through the epiphany of the river god Tiber, and
its description of Aeneas' great shield,
forged by Vulcan. The introduction of several crucial
characters (Latinus, Amata,
Turnus, Lavinia, Evander, and Pallas ) into the narrative.
Questions to Consider:
1. Is the "Pageant of Heroes" an effective way for Virgil
to praise Augustus
(and lament Marcellus)? Do
you find the idea of Aeneas and Anchises
both rejoicing and mourning over
these souls credible or is it too forced?
2. Why do you think Aeneas leaves the Underworld through the
Gate of Ivory?
Topic Nine - Virgil's Iliad
Scope:
The most "Iliadic" section of the Aeneid,
Bks IX and X.
1. the scenes depicting the deaths of the friends Nisus and
Euryalus and how they are
in some sense a doublet for Aeneas and Pallas.
2. Turnus' aristeia
(or scene of special valor), which culminates in his slaying of Pallas.
3. How
Pallas' death inspires Aeneas with furor.
4. Aeneas' killing of Lausus and his father Mezentius.
Questions to Consider:
1. What is the effect of the ."inversions" we have noted in
Books IX and X,
where the Trojan Aeneas plays the
role of the Greek Achilles while
Turnus takes on the role of
the Trojan Hector?
Do you think that your
sympathies are meant to be swayed at all by this?
If so, how?
2. We saw how furor
in the sense of "sexual passion" was a distraction from
Aeneas' mission in Bk IV. Can
this furor (in the sense of "rage") also
be seen as a distraction from
that mission and, thus, as a temptation
for Aeneas to overstress his
private emotions?
Topic Ten - The Inevitable Doom of Turnus
Scope:
Bks XI and XII.
1. How the narrative builds inexorably
toward Turnus' death at Aeneas' hands
through plot elements such as a
broken truce, through Virgil's delineation
of Turnus' and Aeneas' own actions, and through
Juno's sudden agreement
in Bk XII to stop resisting Aeneas ' eventual triumph.
2. How the characters the two warrior-maidens,
Camilla in Bk XI and Juturna
in Bk XII, underline and highlight both the inevitability
of Turnus' death
and several aspects of his character.
Questions to Consider:
1. Can you identify any other narrative devices Virgil uses to stress
the inevitability
in`Turnus' death?
2. Some scholars see Turnus as admirable. noble, and valiant; others
see him
as treacherous and ignoble.
What is your opinion of him?
Topic Eleven - The Gods and Fate
Scope:
1. The role of the gods in the Aeneid. the household gods, or Penates,
distinguished
from the Olympian gods.
2. examine the complex involvement
of the Olympians in the narrative.
3. The way in which the
gods' interactions in the epic increase the audience's sense
of the inevitability of events.
4. How the
gods and fate (fatum) relate to one another..
5. Some specific scenes of the gods' interactions. the
character of Juno,
and her role in the Aeneid.
Questions to Consider:
1. Is it possible to construct a consistent view of fatum
in the Aeneid?
Is it necessary to do
so?
2. How do you read Juno's speech about giving up her anger toward
the Trojans
in Bk XII? Is she is indeed
reconciled to Aeneas' success
or do you, along with some critics,
see ambiguities in the scene?
Topic Twelve - The End of the Aeneid and Beyond
Scope:
1. The most widely discussed critical issue in the Aeneid:
how should we interpret
the end of the epic.? Is Aeneas justified in killing
Turnus, or should he have been merciful?
2. Some of the arguments on both sides of this issue, and the
question of whether the final
scene as we have it is how Virgil intended the Aeneid
to conclude.
3. The Aeneid's influence on later western culture.
Questions to Consider:
1. How do you think we should read Aeneas' actions at the end of
the Aeneid?
2. Some readers think that the end of the Aeneid is simply too
abrupt,
that Virgil cannot have
intended the last line as we have it now to be
the last line of the entire
poem. If this is not Virgil's intended ending,
what more would there be to say?
===============================================================================
Back to
the Aeneid Page.
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Epic Page
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Outlines adapted from Prof. Elizabeth VanDiver's talks for the Teaching
Company
