What will I be studying?
All texts read in this course are in English translation, and this course requires no prior knowledge of ancient history, literature, or languages.
Unit 1: Greek Literature
The course begins with the fountain from which flowed all subsequent surviving Greek literature: the poetry of Homer and Hesiod, each the product (in different ways) of oral poetic cultures and poetic and mythical content that derived from across the Greek world and across the Near East. Following that session, which will provide an introduction to those poets and their works by way of a focus on particular and varied moments of mythic storytelling, we turn to themes that provide through-plots for a study of Greek literature from Homer through to the classical period of Athens. Each of these sessions begins with some myth recounted in Homer, and then shows how that same myth takes a wide variety of forms in subsequent literature and in a variety of genres.
This unit considers the relationship between myth and storytelling in Greek literature, reading Homer’s Iliad (8th/7th century BCE) alongside some of the most famous tragedies from classical Athens (5th century BCE) in English translation. Greek audiences were already familiar with the likely outcome of these stories – already ‘spoiled’ for their conclusions – so what was the appeal of this literature? How did storytellers create interest and why did ancient audiences come to value certain retellings over others? Students will not only examine the use made of myth in formal terms, but also question the role played by both myth and literature in classical Athenian society (5th/4th century BCE), gaining insight into one of the most fundamental dynamics of all ancient literature.
Unit 2: Latin Literature
More than a thousand years after the poet’s death, Virgil is chosen by Dante Alighieri as his pilgrim’s guide through hell and purgatory in his Christian epic poem, the Divine Comedy (14th century CE). What is so special about Virgil, and what is so special about his own epic, the Aeneid (1st century BCE)? This unit considers the role played by Virgil’s Aeneid within the epic tradition, how the poem has been interpreted and how it sets itself up for re-interpretation. In English translation, students will read not only this most famous poem, but other lesser-known works of Latin epic including Lucan’s Civil War and Statius Thebaid (both 1st century CE), as well as Saint Augustine’s reflections on epic and epic-like narrative in the Confessions.
The unit will consider questions which still concern authors today: How does a work of literature declare itself monumental? How does one work draw from another without becoming derivative? To what degree do readers’ interpretations depend on their own society, rather than that in which a work of literature was composed? How different are the challenges faced by mythological epic (like the Thebaid) and historic epic (like the Civil War), and where does the Aeneid fit in such a scheme? What is the role of the gods in these epics, and is that role constant from the 1st centuries BCE and CE? How does Augustine in his Confessions interiorize Latin epic into his prose masterpiece? These are just some of the questions to be addressed in this course, which will focus on close reading of these masterpieces of world literature, setting them in their historic context, and pointing to their immense influence on subsequent traditions.
Unit 3: The Real Roman Empire
Stretching from Britain to Morocco to Syria, it has been estimated that the population of the Roman Empire in the 2nd century CE may have reached sixty million and more. It has also been estimated that as little as ten, even five percent of these people were literate. How do we understand the lives of the empire’s mass of inhabitants, including its slaves?
The aim of this unit is to see how far we can approach Roman history “from below”. Can we begin to describe the cultural world of the “ordinary” Roman? What stories did they tell? What made them laugh? What did they fear? How different were their tastes, cultural preferences even language from those of the elite? Most of the surviving texts in the canon of classical literature pay little more than passing attention to the non-elite, and hardly any were written by those who were not part of a relatively narrow group of the elite or well-connected. But there is nevertheless some material – and more than most people imagine -- which may offer us a glimpse of the world and world-view of the ordinary Roman in the street. This includes fables, joke books, oracles, graffiti and visual representations of many kinds. All these will take centre stage in this course.
What can I go on to do?
Students who have completed a Certificate may be able to progress to FHEQ level 5 provision within the Institute of Continuing Education at the discretion of the Academic Director.
Credit awarded by the Institute can be transferred into the degree programmes of some other higher education providers. However, the amount of credit which can be transferred into degree programmes varies from institution to institution and is always at the discretion of the receiving institution.
