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This module examines the history, culture, and literature of the early Greek world, seen primarily through the medium of Homer’s great epics. We begin with the end of the Bronze Age and the sweeping changes across the Near Eastern Mediterranean that saw the sudden collapse of Mycenaean and Hittite civilizations—historical and archaeological backdrop for Homer’s poetic rendering of the Trojan War. We turn then to Homer’s epics, particularly all the Iliad, as literary masterpieces exploring the realities of war, love, travel, and heroism, and as historical documents reflecting the economic and political conditions of Homer’s own times. The final part of the module explores the enduring importance of Homer in early Archaic Greece. Here supplementary material from visual art and lyric poets such as Archilochus, Sappho and Tyrtaeus gives insight into the early Greek polis, warfare, athletic competitions, symposia, religious life and more. In all, the module offers an interdisciplinary survey of this formative period of Greek culture.
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HOMER, TROY AND EARLY GREECE
Semester 1
