Professor: Casey Dué Hackney (e-mail: cldue@mail.uh.edu). Office hours: 1PM-2PM Mondays and Wednesdays or by appointment, Agnes Arnold Hall room 454. MCL Dept. phone number: (713) 743-3007, but e-mail is always preferable.

Course Web Page: An essential resource -- use it regularly.

Required Reading: Sourcebook, in two volumes. You can purchase the first volume of the Sourcebook at the U of H Copy Center beginning the first week of classes. The Sourcebook contains: Homer, Iliad; Proclus' summaries of the Epic Cycle; the poems of Sappho; Sophocles, Ajax; Aeschylus, the Oresteia trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides); Euripides, Iphigeneia at Aulis and Hecuba; Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos (Oedipus Rex) and Oedipus at Colonus. Also included are "Heroes and the Homeric Iliad," by G. Nagy and selections from Myth in Homer by L. Edmunds.

Components of Course Grade: Hour exams (3) 60%; term paper 20%; final exam 20%.

Term paper: The term paper will consist of a close reading of a passage from one of the works read during the course of the semester. You will be asked to choose one aspect of the passage and make an argument about the passage based on close reading of the text. Close reading means that you use concepts to explain and illuminate passages, not the other way around. In other words, don't generalize about all heroes on the basis of a few passages; instead make an argument about the passage based on what you've learned about the hero.

Term paper passages and thesis statements must be approved by the professor via email no later than 11/28.

Important Dates:

First hour exam 9/17

Second hour exam 10/19

Third hour exam 11/19

Term paper due by 10am 12/6

SCHEDULE OF LECTURES, READINGS, AND SECTIONS

Lectures 1 and 2 will introduce the Iliad. Beginning with the second week, you should complete the assigned reading BEFORE the first lecture of the week.

*Week 1

Reading: "Heroes and the Homeric Iliad" by Gregory Nagy

8/22 Lecture 1 The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization I

8/24 Lecture 2 The Concept of the Hero in Greek Civilization II

*Week 2

Reading: Homer, Iliad, scrolls I, III; Myth in Homer chapter 1

8/27 Lecture 3 The anger of Achilles

8/29 Lecture 4 "Prize": the pre-history of the Iliad

8/31 Lecture 5 Oral poetry and performance I

*Week 3

Reading: Homer, Iliad, scroll IX, XVI; Myth in Homer chapter 2

9/3 LABOR DAY HOLIDAY

9/5 Lecture 6 The shield of Achilles part I; the story of Meleager

9/7 Lecture 7 The death of Patroklos

*Week 4

Reading: Homer, Iliad, scrolls XVIII, XXII and XXIV; Myth in Homer chapters 6 and 9; (suggested) Iliad, scroll XXIII

9/10 Lecture 8 The shield of Achilles part II

9/12 Lecture 9 The tomb of the hero

9/14 Lecture 10 The end of the Iliad

*Week 5

Reading: Proclus, summaries of the Epic Cycle, Selections from Sappho

9/17 Hour Exam 1 on the Iliad

9/19 Lecture 11 After the Iliad: oral poetry and performance II

9/21 Lecture 12 Women's song and dance traditions

*Week 6

Reading: Sophocles, Ajax

9/24 Lecture 13 A brief introduction to Greek tragedy

9/26 Lecture 14 The tragic hero

9/28 Lecture 15 Women's lament traditions

*Week 7

Reading: Aeschylus, Agamemnon

10/1 Lecture 16 Atê and the curse of the house of Atreus

10/3 Lecture 17 The mixing bowl in the house: Aeschylean metaphors and riddles

10/5 Lecture 18 Aeschylean metaphors and riddles, part II

*Week 8

Reading: Aeschylus, Libation Bearers

10/8 Lecture 19 The return of Orestes

10/10 Lecture 20 Ritual and myth; Ancestor worship and hero cult in Archaic and Classical Greece

10/12 Lecture 21 The other side of the vase: Art, myth, and the Oresteia

*Week 9

Reading: Aeschylus, Eumenides

10/15 Lecture 22 The agenda of hero cult as transformed into the social agenda of the City State

10/17 Lecture 23 Overview and review of the Oresteia

10/19 Hour Exam 2 on Epic Cycle, Sappho, Ajax, Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides

*Week 10

Reading: Euripides, Iphigeneia in Aulis

10/22 Lecture 24 Greek heroine cult

10/24 Lecture 25 Sacrificial virgins I

10/26 Lecture 26 "New Historicism" and Greek Tragedy

*Week 11

Reading: Euripides, Hecuba

10/29 Lecture 27 Achilles as Hero in Euripides' Hecuba

10/31 Lecture 28 Sacrificial virgins II

11/2 Lecture 29 A sign for sailors: Aetiology and the sêma of Hecuba

*Week 12

Reading: Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannos

11/5 Lecture 30 The hero as symbol of the city-state in crisis

11/7 Lecture 31 God/hero antagonism

11/9 Lecture 32 Pollution (miasma) and katharsis

*Week 13

Reading: Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus

11/12 Lecture 33 Home for the hero

11/14 Lecture 34 Immortalization scenarios

11/16 Lecture 35 The power of the cult-hero in death

*Week 14

11/19 Hour Exam 3 on Euripides' IA and Hecuba; Sophocles' OT and OC

11/21-11/24 THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

*Week 15

Reading: Virgil, Aeneid Book 2; Catullus 64; Ovid, Heroides 3

11/26 Lecture 36 From Alexandria to Rome I

11/28 Lecture 37 From Alexandria to Rome II

11/30 Lecture 38 Epic, lament, and love song

*Week 16

12/3 Review

12/6 *Term paper due by 10am*