The following material has been published on the web by Prof. Tom Sienkewicz for his students at Monmouth College. If you have any questions, you can contact him at toms@monm.edu.
CLAS210 Ancient Literature: Epic
MWF 900-9:50 A.M.
2nd Semester, 1997-1998
Capron Classics Room
The Epic examines the genre of oral and literary epics in ancient Greece and Rome, its influence on the later epic tradition, and its place in the world epic tradition. The course beings with the oral epics of Homer, examines their influence on the literary epics of Vergil and Dante and places them in the epic tradition which includes the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh and West African Sunjata. All these epics will be read not only from the point of view of American readers but also from the perspective of the epics' original audiences.