Seminar in Reading and Interpretation (300-0-21)

Topic

The Odyssey from Homer to Ourselves

Instructors

Christine Froula

Meeting Info

University Hall 412: Tues, Thurs 11:00AM - 12:20PM

Overview of class

From its ancient origins in song and performance through its epochal written composition and its long history of commentary, translation, and adaptation, The Odyssey has never ceased to inspire new readings and interpretations. We'll study this epic poem as a great and provocative human story as well as a virtuosic celebration of human techne—craft and skill—in all things: warfare, diplomacy, marriage, familial and social relations, domestic and fine arts, athletic feats, dance, disguise, leadership, and, above all, the eloquence in which the poem and its hero excel: language, storytelling, dialogue, and rhetoric as indispensable arts of life.

Approaching translations as interpretations in themselves, we'll read one English translation in common and compare selected passages with others. We'll analyze Homeric storytelling, both in its own right and alongside key moments in adaptations across cultures, languages, genres, and media. We'll ask: how do The Odyssey and its adaptations stage human values? How do they interpret what's important in life, how to live, what to do? How do they dramatize human mind, will, desire, and love; loss, exile, adventure, and arduous homecoming after a devastating war; guests, strangers, hospitality, and violence; history, time, memory, and forgetting; men and women, families and warriors, masters and servants, the mortal human condition and the immortal gods? How do readers, interpreters, and creative artists, including ourselves, understand and engage these themes and human dramas?

Class Attributes

Advanced Expression
Literature and Arts Foundational Discipline
SoC Humanities and Fine Arts Distro