For Wednesday: The Iliad, Books 3 and 6

From "The Age of Bronze," a graphic novel of the Iliad (in our library)

For Wednesday: The Iliad, Books 3 and 6

Answer TWO of the following…

1. How do Books 3 and 6 help us discuss the question of free will in The Iliad?  Do men and women act on their own desires and impulses, or are all these actions decreed by the gods?  Where do we see an event that seems to answer this question? 

2. Discuss how Helen responds to Aphrodite in Book 3: how does this contradict our view of Helen in the movie, Troy?  How does Homer see Helen, and what makes this a more believable, and perhaps modern, characterization of her? 

3. In Book 6 we meet Hector’s wife, Andromache, another strong female voice in the poem.  How does she complicate our idea of heroes fighting a glorious battle?  What is the “woman’s perspective” on the Trojan war, at least according to her?

4. How do Books 3 and 6 contrast the characters of Troy’s two heroes, Paris and Hector?  Are they as distinct as they appear in the movie, or are there more subtle, less obvious differences?  Which one is more ‘heroic’ in modern terms?  Do you feel one wasn’t seen as a hero in the ancient world?  Are there any clues that suggest this?  

For Monday: The Iliad, Books 1 and 2 (pp.1-27/Lombardo Translation)

For Monday: The Illiad, Books 1 and 2

Answer TWO of the following: 

1. From the first two books, what kind of relationship do humans have with the gods? What role do the gods serve for them, and likewise, what roles do humans serve for the gods?  What makes this relationship so different from the man/God relationship in most monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam)? 

2. Examine Achilles’ confrontation with Agamemnon in Book I: how do we respond to him as a hero in this passage?  Does he seem modern and sympathetic here, or is he petulant and childish?  Do you think Homer’s audience would have responded the same way, or is this a modern, 21^st century response based on our own cultural biases/expectations? Discuss a line or two that influences your response. 

3. Though Achilles is often thought to be the embodiment of hubris (excessive pride, overconfidence, etc.), in what ways does Agamemnon also deserve this title?  How do we see the leader of the Greek armies display this quality, and how does it endanger the Greeks’ relationship with the gods?

4. The Iliad is an imaginative re-telling of the legendary battle of Troy, and more importantly, it is a poem, so it uses metaphors to make the warriors of old come to life. Discuss a passage in Book 1 or 2 where metaphors are used creatively to help us see and experience the realities of battle.  Be sure to explain why you find this metaphor unique and what it helped you understand about this moment in the poem.

For Friday: Scenes from Troy (2004)

For Friday, we'll be watching a few scenes from the 2004 film Troy, to preface our reading of Books 1 and 2 of The Iliad on Monday.  Be sure you have the book and feel free to start reading if you know you're a slow reader or fear you might not be enthralled by an epic about heroes, gods, warfare, and love in the ancient world (but seriously, how could you not?).  I will post questions for Books 1 and 2 on Friday, so check back after class for more details.

For Friday: "The Wisdom of Sappho" and response below

An actual fragment of Sappho' s poetry

Be sure to read the few fragments in the last chapter, "The Wisdom of Sappho" before responding to the question below.  However, you can use poems from anywhere in the book to answer this response, either in the last chapter or other ones.  

Respond to the following question in a developed paragraph (at least 4-5 sentences, with sufficient detail to answer the question).  Even though Sappho’s poetry consists largely of fragments, many of these fragments seem to go together, as if they express the same basic thoughts or themes.  Looking through the poems in our book, choose 3-4 fragments that seem (to you) able to work together to make a complete poem.  Why do these works go together, and what do we see if we read the fragments as one complete work?  How might this help our appreciation of Sappho and our understanding of women in the ancient world?  Be sure to quote from one or two of the poems to illustrate your ideas. 

For Wednesday: Sappho, Stung With Love, pp.57-79

Sappho, Stung With Love (pp.57-79), "Troy" and "Maidens and Marriages"

Answer TWO of the following…

In one of her famous poems, “Some call ships, infantry or horsemen” (p.59), Sappho confronts male ideas of beauty with a female perspective.  How does she do this—and why does she use the figure of Helen of Troy (the infamous beauty who ran off with Paris and abandoned her husband/children)?  According to this poem at least, what makes women different from men when it comes to love? 

2. Which fragments seem almost too broken to make sense of?  How might you reconstruct the story/ideas behind them to give them more context?  What makes you think this might be the real story behind this fragment?  Be specific…

3. Some of the poems in the last part of our reading are wedding songs, which celebrate the wedding night of the bride and groom.  How do these poems show us a different side of Sappho’s art?  Why might these poems have been as scandalous to later ages as her poems about female love? 

4. How might some of the “Maidens and Marriages” poems be advice from a mother to her daughter?  What advice might Sappho want to give to her daughters—or the next generation of women?  Consider the poems on page 67, for example...how might these be metaphorical advice to a young woman?  

For Monday: Sappho, Stung With Love (pp.21-53)

For Monday: Sappho, Stung with Love: “Desire and Death Longing” and “Her Girls and Family” (pp.21-53)

Answer TWO of the following in a short paragraph, at least 3-4 sentences, but be as specific as possible.  No one sentence answers will get credit, since I want to see what you think, not just what you can say. 

1. How does Sappho use metaphors to capture the experience of love, desire, heartbreak, nostalgia, or some other emotion?  Choose a specific poem and discuss why the metaphors are very relatable to a modern audience.  Remember that metaphors put one experience in terms of another so we can see/understand them in a different light.  For example, on page 5 we had "the leaves drip slumber," which isn't possible, but it seems possible since the leaves are calm, soothing, and can lull us to sleep.  

2. If many of these poems are by women to other women, what kind of love do they express?  Remember that there is only one word for love in the English language, but other languages have many words for the differnet kinds of love.  So a "love" poem in ancient Greek might not necessarily be sexual in nature.  Do you see that here--are these 'friendship' love poems, or something much more passionate?  Why do you think so?

3. How might many of these poems support the idea that Sappho was a mother, and regarded many of the women around her as her daughters?  Why might a mother relate to many of the sentiments/emotions in these poems?

4. Why might we consider these poems 'snapshots' of the lives of women in ancient Greece?  What does it reveal about their lives, hardships, relationships, and desires?  What might Sappho have wanted her readers to see/hear about the true nature of women, who were supposed to be 'seen but not heard' in the ancient world?

Welcome to the Course

Welcome to Humanities 2113, also known as "General Humanities I."  What is “General Humanities I”? Let’s start with what it isn’t: don’t expect a course where you are expected to memorize endless dates, figures, and factoids to regurgitate on a weekly exam. Instead, the goal of this class is to explore our shared cultural heritage, a collection of works that continue to shape how we see, appreciate, and evaluate the world. As the Preface of the Norton Anthology of World Literature explains, “World literature is ground in the history of the world, but it is also the history of imagining this world; it is a history not just of what happened, but also of how humans imagined their place in the midst of history.” In other words, this is a class that explains how we “made” history in our own image. 

The true ‘work’ of this course will be learning to read the literature that survived history to become culture, even though many of them will be unfamiliar to you.  From Greece to the Middle East, we’ll explore the most fundamental ideas of humanity so we can see ourselves in history.  If you are what you eat, you are also what you read—and what your ancestors wrote down to preserve for future generations.  Silly as it might sound, this is your story, preserved in black and white as your cultural DNA.  So start reading!

I've listed the books for class below in the order we're reading them.  Be sure to get them as soon as possible, since the ECU bookstore only holds onto the books for a few weeks before sending them back.  You are required to own all the books for class and read them along with the class.  

• Sappho, Stung With Love: Poems and Fragments (Penguin Classics)
• Homer, The Essential Iliad (trnsl. Lombardo, Hackett)
• Tales from the 1,001 Nights (Penguin Classics)
• Machiavelli, The Prince (Penguin Classics or other)
• Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (Pelican Shakespeare or other)

I look forward to exploring these works with you over the Fall 2014 semester!  Please contact me with any questions or concerns at jgrasso@ecok.edu.  

NOTE: The posts below this one are from Fall 2013: they are not assignments for this week or next.  Feel free to browse through them if you like, but none of these questions or readings will appear in our course.