If, after reviewing the contents of this page, you still wish to enroll in the Honors section, click here for information.

Greek Mythology: Honors Enrichment Section

F 10-11:30, HSSB 4065

The Honors Enrichment Section for Classics 40 (Fall 2003) will focus on deepening and supplementing the regular course in three particular areas: direct engagement with more texts of great importance for Greek mythology (Hesiod’s Theogony and Works and Days; Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex; Euripides’ Medea); fuller exploration of problems of interpretation of myth (especially Freudian psychoanalytic and Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist interpretations); and increased attention to the modern use of Greek myth (through a film, "A Dream of Passion," and reading of Jonathan Shay’s Achilles in Vietnam).

Students interested in the Honors section need to understand that the subject-matter of Greek mythology is often dark, and if fully appreciated, deeply disturbing. The Medea, and our associated film, "A Dream of Passion," are emotionally devastating treatments of the mythical theme of a mother who kills her own children. Achilles in Vietnam contains powerful, gut-wrenching first-person narratives of the horrors real soldiers have really faced in war, and for this reason I would frankly not recommend this section to anyone who is personally close to someone currently serving in a war-zone.

Additional books to be purchased for the Honors section:

1. Hesiod, The Works and Days (etc.), trans. R. Lattimore, Michigan U. P. 1991.
2. Sophocles, Oedipus the King, trans. S. Berg and D. Clay, Oxford U. P. 1978.
3. Euripides, Medea and Other Plays, trans. J. Morwood, Oxford U. P. 1997.

I strongly urge you to acquire these particular translations (as well as those of Homer used in the course), since we should all be looking at the same words when we discuss the texts in class.

Other required texts listed on the syllabus will be found on Course Reserve at the Davidson Library. I strongly recommend photocopying them so that you can read and study them at leisure.

For students in the Honors section, some other aspects of the course will differ as well:

• The Final examination will be in essay rather than multiple-choice format.
• The required essay will be a little longer than that of the regular sections: 7-10 pp.
• There will not be weekly quizzes, as in the regular sections. Students themselves will be responsible for regularly refreshing their memory of the material in lectures and readings. The quizzes posted on the companion website to our textbook should help check your comprehension of the textbook, although of course they do not cover my lectures.
• The constituents of the final grade will be:
  15% midterm examination
  35% final examination
  25% participation in section (esp. value of contribution to discussion)
  25% essay. 

Schedule of readings

Note 1: an asterisk (*) indicates that the text has been placed on reserve at the Reserve Book Room in the Davidson Library.

Note 2: Internet links listed on the Honors syllabus are integral to the class and are therefore required reading.

Note 3: Honors students are expected, in addition, to check all the internet links on the on-line syllabus of the regular course, and also to use, as relevant, those given on the "Internet Resources" page.

Week I, Sept. 26: Creation and mankind’s "fall"

• Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, lines 1-201 (only)
• Genesis 1-3 (preferably in a modern translation of the Bible, such as the English Standard Version)

Week II, Oct. 3: Narrative structures and mythic adaptation

• M&L pp. 98-104

• The Hurrian-Hittite "Kingship in Heaven" and "Song of Ullikummis" (* James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3^rd ed. [1969] pp. 120-25) [footnote 1]
• The Babylonian Enuma Elish, tablets I-V (* Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. 60-68) [footnote 2]

• Compare Hesiod’s Theogony, lines 507-616, to his Works and Days, lines 42-106.

Week III, Oct. 10: Sophocles’ Oedipus

• Sophocles, Oedipus the King (all)

• * E. R. Dodds, "On misunderstanding Oedipus Rex," in Erich Segal, ed., Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy (1983), pp. 177-88.

Week IV, Oct. 17: The meaning of the Oedipus myth: two modern classics of interpretation

• Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, excerpt from chapter V, part D, section b. (On-line text linked from Week 5 of on-line syllabus.)

• Claude Lévi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth," in Thomas E. Sebeok, ed., Myth: A Symposium, pp. 81-106. [footnote 3]

Week V, Oct. 24: Euripides, Medea

Week VIII, Nov. 14: * Shay, Achilles in Vietnam, Chaps. 3-5 (pp. 39-99)

Week IX, Nov. 21: Oral presentation of essay topics.

Week X, Nov. 28: No class (Thanksgiving)

Footnotes

(1) For the names and attributes of the Hittite deities, see Christopher Siren's on-line introduction to Hurrian-Hittite mythology at his Myths and Legends website.

(2) For the names and attributes of the Babylonian deities, see Christopher Siren's on-line introduction to Assyro-Babylonian mythology.

(3) For clarification and discussion of Lévi-Strauss's method, see Mary Klages's web-page on "The Structural Study of Myth."

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