The Nature and Goals of the Course

In this class, we'll review some of the oldest and most important literature in Western Civilization, with the goal of grasping the scope and depth of thought penetrating the deepest layers of our cultures and framing seminal questions about the very nature of humanity. The sheer antiquity of what we're going to study poses challenges equal to its rewards. Students will have to stretch their minds as they try to embrace values and beliefs which are sometimes foreign to modern ways of thinking. As you can see from the Syllabus, we will move slowly but steadily through assignments which you are warned may require more time to absorb and comprehend than readings in modern literature.

Within those aims, we will also seek to investigate the history of narrative art forms and their evolution through time from early oral epic to performed drama to written literature. These media—epic, drama and literature—provide a chronological and critical framework for the course, each structuring one of the three major Sections of the class. Thus, one of the central questions we'll ask is how art forms reflect and direct thought in their age and how the nature of an art shapes artistic choices and the ways in which a society sees itself and the world at large.