Syllabus

William A. JohnsonGreek 103

Office: Allen 229B    •    WF 1-2, or by appt.   •    684-2082   •   william.johnson@duke.edu

Homer: The Iliad

The history of Greek poetic writing begins properly with the Iliad and Odyssey, which represent however not only the beginning of the written tradition of Greek poetry but also the culmination of a lengthy tradition of orally-transmitted verse. Thus Homeric poetry constitutes something of a paradox: on the one hand, direct, traditional, and seemingly unselfconscious; on the other hand, complex in intertextual associations, sophisticated in organization and deployment of artistic devices. No historical curiosity this, but high art deserving of our most serious attention.

The principal goal of our course will be to learn how to read the Iliad in the original language. We will also make a prolegomenal [cf. προλεγόμενον] investigation into some of the difficulties and rewards of interpretative study.

The course will emphasize understanding of the Greek in all its subtlety, complexity, and beauty. But we will also concern ourselves with gaining some fluency in our reading of Homeric Greek. To that end, we will gradually speed up the pace of the readings, at first through the use of instructor-prepared help sheets. By the end of the term we expect to have a firm feel for the flow of the epic language, that joyous sense of the "loft and carry that sweeps along the listener" (Fagles). We will read in Greek all of the first book, the end of the last book, and as many of the intervening selections from Benner as we can manage. Students are also expected to read the entirety of the Iliad in translation.

Course requirements: There will be brief written and/or oral assignments on secondary matters, and early on occasional quizzes. The quizzes will be designed to check understanding of grammatical points or to provide practice in sight translation. There will be three one-hour examinations, and one longer research paper on a topic of your choice. Examinations will test your ability to understand and analyze passages read and discussed in class, with emphasis on comprehension of the Greek.

Graded material will be weighted as follows:

Presentations, short papers, class work25%

One-hour examinations (3)55%

Final paper (10 pages)20%

Textbooks.

Required:

Allen Rogers Benner, Selections from Homer’s Iliad. 1903, reprinted many times.

R. J. Cunliffe. Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect.  Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1980. Benner contains a useful short vocabulary, but Cunliffe is essential for exploring Homeric vocabulary in detail.

Companion texts.

W. B. Owen and E. J. Goodspeed. Homeric Vocabularies.  Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1979. Electronic resource: see library catalogue. Word lists organized by frequency.

I. Morris and B. Powell, ed. A new companion to Homer. Brill, 1997. Useful for exploring general topics relating to the Iliad, as currently constructed in Homeric criticism. Will be available on reserve in Perkins (in process).

G. S. Kirk et al. The Iliad, a commentary. Cambridge.(in six volumes, 1985-93). The standard large-scale commentary on the Iliad.  Each volume starts with a set of essays on general topics, the collection of which forms an outstanding introduction to the Iliad. Will be available on reserve in Perkins (in process). The first two volumes are available in Classics Department Library (non-circulating).

For reading the intervening books in translation, I recommend these, readily available in bookstores and in the library:

R. Fagles, Homer: the Iliad (translation). More readable; a fine poetic translation that is my standard choice for translation courses.

R. Lattimore, The Iliad of Homer (translation). Less immediately accessible, but masterfully close to the Greek.