Perspectives on World Literature to 1800

TEXTBOOKS.

At the bookstore:

• Homer, The Odyssey, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Noonday Press, 1998), ISBN 0374525749
• Aeschylus, The Oresteia, trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin, 1984), ISBN 0140443339
• Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald (Vintage, 1983), ISBN 0679729526
• Livy, The War With Hannibal, trans. Aubrey De Selincourt (Penguin, 1965), ISBN 014044145X
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, trans. Rolfe Humphries (Indiana UP, 1955), ISBN 0253200016
• Dante, The Divine Comedy Vol. I: Inferno, trans. Mark Musa (Penguin, 1984), ISBN 0140444416
• John Milton, Paradise Lost (Norton, 1993), ISBN 0393962938

On reserve at the library:

• Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army
• Helen M. Parkins, ed., Roman Urbanism
• Susan E. Wood, Imperial Women
• Carlin A. Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans
• Garrett G. Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World
• Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture
• Robert Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire
• Kurt A. Raaflaub and Mark Toher, eds., Between Republic and Empire
• Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200
• Erich S. Gruen, Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy

Other:

• a Bible (any edition and translation as long as it has the Aprocrypha and both the Old and New Testaments)

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  We all achieve a better sense of literary history in general and of individual works in particular when we analyze texts in the context of their synchronic intersections with and diachronic “re-visions” of other texts, cultures, and traditions.  LIT 231/CMP 231 will put course readings into precisely this type of context by focusing the syllabus on a pivotal literary text -- Virgil’s Aeneid.  Around this pivotal text, the course will explore literary and historical relations -- the textual “ancestors” and “progeny” that influenced or rewrote the Aeneid, as well as the philological, social, and political contexts that surrounded Virgil’s text.

GOALS.  As my goals for this course, I want you

1. to engage in the analysis and interpretation of texts in their concrete historicity -- that is, in their diverse philological, historical, aesthetic, cultural, and theoretical contexts,
2. to develop an understanding and appreciation of the development of some of the literary traditions, cultural values, modes of thought, and uses of language current before 1800,
3. to practice comparative literary and historical analysis, and
4. to enlarge the body of literature that you have read by becoming familiar with texts from other times and cultures, written in languages other than your own.

REQUIREMENTS.  For this course, you must complete the following graded assignments:

1. a mid-term exam (250 points),
2. 15 two-page response papers (15 points each),
3. a longer paper (260 points), and
4. a final exam (265 points).

Your final grade will be based on a 1000-point scale:  A = 930-1000, A- = 900-929, B+ = 870-899, B = 830-869, B- = 800-829, C+ = 770-799, C = 730-769, C- = 700-729, D+ = 670-699, D = 600-669, and F = below 600.

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of the exams and papers in this class.  Class exercises and discussion constitute important, useful preparation for the course’s graded assignments.  If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day’s contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone).  If, however, you positively must miss a class, I expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared -- without excuses -- to the next class meeting.

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216.  My office hours this semester will be 9:30-10:50 a.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  If you cannot see me at this time, however, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment at another time.  You may also contact me by e-mail (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.  E-mail is generally the fastest way to contact me in an emergency.

EMAIL.  I may, on occasion, want to e-mail everyone in class.  I generally only have access to your TCNJ e-mail addresses, however.  As a result, if you regularly use an e-mail address other than your TCNJ address, I recommend that you have mail from your TCNJ address forwarded to the address you use more regularly.  That way, if I e-mail your TCNJ address, my message will be forwarded to your other address automatically.  To forward mail from your TCNJ address, just go to http://managemail.tcnj.edu/  and click “Mail Forwarding Manager.”  Follow the directions there to set up the mail forwarding.

If you would like to send an e-mail message to one or more of your classmates, you can do so through SOCS.  To access SOCS, go to http://socs.tcnj.edu and, after you have logged in with your TCNJ e-mail username and password, choose this class from the list of your courses this semester.  Then, when our course page comes up, click the “Email” button.  From there, you can select individual e-mail addresses or the entire class and send a message to the addresses you’ve selected.

RESPONSE PAPERS.  In the course of the term, you are required to write 15 short, informal papers (about 2 pages each) on the readings for class.  You may choose which days and which readings you want to respond to.  I will post questions about each day’s reading assignment for you to consider as the basis of your response.

Response papers will be graded Pass/Fail.  I ask you to type them (so that they are easier for me to read), but they need not be a perfect, polished product.  Rather, response papers should be just what their name says -- a response.  Think about the question(s) that I ask you to consider for a particular day’s reading assignment; then, write a response.  Don’t worry about typos or comma splices or organization.  Don’t worry about answering every question I ask in the assignment.  In fact, focus on the one question that seems most interesting to you, and be as specific as you can, getting down as much as you can, as quickly as you can.  Treat response papers more like a journal entry than like a formal paper.  I don’t want a five-paragraph theme.  Rather, I want an exploration -- as detailed and specific as possible -- of the reading assignment for the day.

Normally, as long as you submit a response paper of suitable length, detail, and thoughtfulness (and as long as you turn it in on time on the assigned day), you will receive all 15 points that the assignment is worth.

You may submit more than 15 response papers in the course of the semester (to make up for any response papers that do not receive a grade of Pass), but no matter how many extra response papers you turn in, you will not receive more than 225 points total for all the response papers you write.  You may not submit more than one response paper on a single day, nor may you submit a response paper for a day that you are absent from class.  (NOTE:  Even if you do not submit a response paper on a particular day, you should still come to class prepared to discuss the assigned questions for that day, since we will focus on those questions in the in-class discussion of the reading assignment.)

PAPER.  Odysseus/Ulysses has definitely been a popular figure in the texts that we have been reading this term.  Odysseus/Ulysses appears as a major or minor character in Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Dante.  Compare Dante’s Ulysses to at least one other incarnation of the Odysseus/Ulysses character.  What seem to be the central characteristics of the tradition of this character?  How did those central characteristics develop over time and in different places?  How does each writer use the tradition or modify the character?  Most especially, focus on how Dante has altered or maintained the tradition of Odysseus/Ulysses.  Which other Odysseus/Ulysses is most like Dante’s?  What characteristics from other incarnations of the character does Dante use and admire?  What characteristics does he revise or criticize?  Given that Dante never read Homer himself, how does Dante preserve and/or revise the tradition that began with Homer?  In a paper of about 10 pages 5-7 pages, argue a clear and specific thesis about Dante’s use of the tradition of Odysseus/Ulysses with particular emphasis on at least one other incarnation of the Odysseus/Ulysses character.  Note: You need not use outside sources for this paper (that is, sources in addition to the texts of Homer, Virgil, Ovid, and Dante).  You will also submit this paper to me in two copies -- one in the electronic “dropbox” in SOCS and one in hard copy in class.

COURSE SCHEDULE.  This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.  Reading assignments from reserve materials are shown in purple.  Changes in the schedule are shown in red.

Date	Assignment
R Aug 28	Introductions
M Sep 1	NO CLASS (Labor Day)
T Sep 2	Homer, Odyssey, Books I-IV Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Sep 4	Homer, Odyssey, Books V-VI and IX-X Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Sep 8	Homer, Odyssey, Books XI-XIV Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Sep 11	Homer, Odyssey, Books XVIII and XXI-XXIII Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Sep 15	Aeschylus, Agamemon (in The Oresteia, pp. 98-172) Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Sep 18	Aeschylus, the Eumenides (in The Oresteia, pp. 227-277) Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Sep 22	Esther, Judith, and 2 Maccabees (from the Bible) Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Sep 25	Virgil, Aeneid, Books I-II Galinsky, Augustan Culture, pp. 80-121 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Sep 29	Virgil, Aeneid, Books IV-V Wood, Imperial Women, pp. 1-26 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Oct 2	Virgil, Aeneid, Books VI and VIII Parkins, ed., Roman Urbanism, pp. 21-41 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Oct 6	Virgil, Aeneid, Books X and XII Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Oct 9	Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 1-3 Fagan, Bathing in Public in the Roman World, pp. 40-84 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Oct 13	Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 10-12 Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, pp. 107-144 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Oct 16	Ovid, Metamorphoses, Books 13-15 Gruen, Studies in Greek Culture and Roman Policy, pp. 158-192 Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Oct 20	NO CLASS (Mid-Term Break)
R Oct 23	MID-TERM EXAM
M Oct 27	Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXI Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army, pp. 132-171 Raaflaub and Toher, Between Republic and Empire, pp. 139-154 (on reserve) Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Oct 30	Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXII Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, 100 BC-AD 200, pp. 76-115 Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXVIII Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Nov 3	Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXVIII Raaflaub and Toher, Between Republic and Empire, pp. 139-154 Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXX Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Nov 6	Livy, The War with Hannibal, Book XXX Barton, The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans, pp. 11-46 Acts and 1 Corinthians (from the Bible) Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, pp. 1-27 (on reserve) Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Nov 10	Acts and 1 Corinthians (from the Bible) Turcan, The Cults of the Roman Empire, pp. 1-27 1 John (the first Epistle of John from the Bible, not the Gospel of John) Marie de France, Lanval (in SOCS under “Resources”) Dante, Inferno, Cantos I-V Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Nov 13	1 John (the first Epistle of John, not the Gospel of John) Dante, Inferno, Cantos I-V Brunetto Latini, the opening to Il Tesoretto Dante, Inferno, Cantos VIII-XI, XIII, XV Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Nov 17	Dante, Inferno, Cantos VIII-XI, XIII, XV Dante, Inferno, Cantos XVIII, XXI-XXV Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Nov 20	Dante, Inferno, Cantos XVIII, XXI-XXV Dante, Inferno, Canto XXVI PAPER DUE.  I want you to submit two copies of your paper to me on this day -- one electronic copy in the “dropbox” in SOCS and one hard copy brought to class. Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
F Nov 21	PAPER DUE in the electronic “dropbox” in SOCS  (No class.)
M Nov 24	Bertran de Born, “In Praise of War” (in SOCS under “Resources”) Dante, Inferno, Cantos XXVIII, XXX-XXXIV Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Nov 27	NO CLASS (Thanksgiving)
M Dec 1	Genesis, Chapters 1-3 (from the Bible) Milton, Paradise Lost, Books I-III Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
R Dec 4	Milton, Paradise Lost, Books V and IX-X Click here for the day's response paper assignment.
M Dec 15	FINAL EXAM (at our regularly scheduled class time in our regularly scheduled room)

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