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Department of Comparative Literature and Culture School of Languages, Linguistics and Film
Epic Remakes: Ancient Hero(in)es and Modern Society COM6212
Module convenor: Dr Annabel Cox, [email protected] Lecture: Tuesdays, 1-2pm Seminars: Tuesdays, 2.30-3.30pm or 4-5pm Office hours: by appointment
Content description:
This module will investigate how some key Greek mythical figures have been adapted, from antiquity to today, to suit new contexts. How have these ancient Western characters been repurposed to contemporary social debates? Drawing on artistic media, films and recent poetry, in addition to literary translations and adaptations, we will focus on characters, mortal and divine, from the Trojan War myths. These will include Briseis, Helen, Circe, Penelope, Achilles, Patroclus and Odysseus. Analysis will focus on issues of identity and representation, including from intersectional and postcolonial perspectives, and with the intention of raising awareness of how divergences between source and adaptation can perpetuate, or challenge, implicit bias and ideological assumptions.
All texts will be studied in English. However, there will be some linguistic support (no prior knowledge assumed) to enable students to engage with some of the choices regarding vocabulary, syntax, and poetic metre, so that translations can be assessed with an eye to the original ancient Greek.
Module aims: 2
1) To introduce students to some of the key challenges in reworking Ancient Greek literature, especially in terms of its political and social implications
2) To make students aware of the significance of specific strategies and linguistic choices adopted in retellings, translation, adaptations and cultural transfer
3) To explore the relationship between textual retellings of Ancient Greek literature and other areas of cultural production, in antiquity and today
Learning Outcomes:
Students will gain knowledge of:
1. Key aspects of adaptation of texts from Greek antiquity and scholarly theories surrounding these ‘afterlives’ (classical reception) 2. The relationship between classical Greek antiquity and successive adaptations 3. The broader cultural impact of classical Greek antiquity within and beyond Europe
Weekly schedule:
Week Lecture Seminar Readings 1 Introduction to module Origins and traits of the epic ‘Bk XI’, Epic of Gilgamesh genre Puchner chapter (on QM+) 2 The Iliad - background Characterisation of Achilles The Iliad, start of Bk I, trans. Butler The Iliad, various extracts from Bk I, trans. Fitzgerald 3 The Iliad cont’d: Briseis Briseis, Briseis and Achilles Barker’s The Silence of the Girls - extracts Miller’s Song of Achilles, extracts Film of Troy (2004) 4 The Iliad cont’d: Achilles and Achilles and Patroclus Miller’s The Song of Achilles Patroclus – extracts, Fry’s Troy - ‘Pseudo-Achilles’ extract Barker’s The Silence of the Girls - extracts 5 The Odyssey - background Odysseus The Odyssey, Wilson Essay 1 workshop translation – extracts The Odyssey, Rieu translation, extracts Essay 1 questions 6 The Odyssey cont’d: Circe Circe The Odyssey ‘Book X’, through the ages Wilson translation Sotheby ‘Book X (302-44) The Moly Flower Saves Ulysses from Circe’s Spell’ Miller’s Circe – extract Gunn’s ‘Moly’ 3
7 Reading week 8 The Odyssey cont’d: other Penelope and the Maids The Odyssey, Wilson female characters translation – extracts Sanford Pinsker ‘Penelope’s Reply’ Attwood The Penelopiad – extracts 9 Ancient Greek Additions to Women and war in Ancient The Women of Troy, Homer Greece Euripides - extracts 10 Rewriting Homer: Achilles/Achille, Hector, The Iliad, Fitzgerald trans - Postcolonialism Helen extracts Walcott’s Omeros - extracts 11 Rewriting Euripides and Women and war in C19th The Women of Owu, Femi Homer: Postcolonial Feminism Nigeria Osofisan - extracts 12 Conclusions Final essay workshop Essay questions
Assessment:
1500 word essay, due by 11.55pm on Thursday 11 March 2021
2500 word essay, due by 11.55pm on Thursday 08 April 2021
Essay questions available on QM+
Primary texts:
Anon. (2000) The Epic of Gilgamesh: A New Translation trans. by Andrew George, London: Penguin Classics.
Attwood, Margaret (2007) The Penelopiad: The Play, London: Faber and Faber.
Barker, Pat (2018) The Silence of the Girls, London: Penguin/Random House.
Euripides (2001) The Trojan Women and Other Plays, trans. James Morwood, intro. Edith Hall, Oxford: World’s Classics. [415BC]
Fry, Stephen (2020) Troy, London: Penguin/Random House.
Gunn, Thom (1996) ‘Moly’ in George Steiner, ed. Homer in English, London: Penguin, pp. 285-86. [1971]
Homer (2019) The Iliad of Homer Rendered into English Prose for Those Who Cannot Read the Original, trans. Samuel Butler, Project Guttenberg
Homer (1946) The Odyssey, trans. E. V. Rieu, Harmondsworth/New York: Penguin.
Homer (2020) The Odyssey, trans. Emily Wilson, New York/London: Norton. 4
Miller, Madeline (2012) The Song of Achilles, London: Bloomsbury.
Miller, Madeline (2019) Circe, London: Bloomsbury.
Osofisan, Femi (2006) The Women of Owu, Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.
Peterson, Wolfgang (2004) Troy
Pinsker, Sanford (1996) ‘Penelope’s Reply (With Apologies to Tennyson)’ in George Steiner, ed. Homer in English, London: Penguin, pp. 319-20. [1974]
Sotheby, William (1996) ‘Book X (302-44) The Moly Flower Saves Ulysses from Circe’s Spell’ in George Steiner, ed. Homer in English, London: Penguin, pp. 142-43. [1834]
Walcott, Derek (1992) Omeros, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Secondary Reading: Introductions to Greek and Roman myth Clark, Matthew. Exploring Greek Myth 2012. Edmunds, Lowell, ed. Approaches to Greek Myth 2014. Fry, Stephen. Mythos: A Retelling of the Myths of Ancient Greece 2017. Fry, Stephen. Heroes 2018. Fry, Stephen. Troy: Our Greatest Story Retold 2020. Glick, Andrew. A Comprehensive Dictionary of Gods, Goddesses, Demigods, and Other Subjects in Greek and Roman Mythology Mellen Studies in Mythology; v. 1. Lewiston, N.Y.; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004. Haynes, Natalie. Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths. 2020. Mac Sweeney, Naoíse. Troy : Myth, City, Icon. Archaeological Histories; 7. 2018. Haywood, Jan, and Mac Sweeney, Naoíse. Homer's Iliad and the Trojan War: Dialogues on Tradition. 2018. March, Jennifer R. Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Oxbow Books, 2014. Morales, Helen. Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Price, S. R. F, and Kearns, Emily, ed. The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Segal, Robert Alan. Myth Analyzed, Theorists of Myth. 2020. Woodard, Roger D. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Vernant, Jean-Pierre. Myth and Society in Ancient Greece, trans. by Janet Lloyd. New York: London: Zone ; MIT [distributor], 1988. Wiseman, T. P. The Myths of Rome. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2004. Woodford, Susan. Images of Myths in Classical Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 5
Classical Reception: introductions and theory Butler, Shane (ed). Deep Classics: Rethinking Classical Reception. Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Martindale, Charles, and Thomas, Richard F. eds. Classics and the Uses of Reception. Classical Receptions. Malden, Mass.; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Hardwick, Lorna, and Stray, Christopher, eds. A Companion to Classical Receptions Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Hardwick, Lorna, and Harrison, S. J., eds. Classics in the Modern World : A 'democratic Turn'? Classical Presences. 2013.
Greek and Roman myth and literature in the modern world Balmer, Josephine. Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Berti, Irene, Castello, Maria G., and Scilabra, Carla, eds. Ancient Violence in the Modern Imagination: The Fear and the Fury Imagines - Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts. 2020. Bosher, Macintosh, McConnell, and Rankine (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas, OUP 2013 Bryant Davies, Rachel. Troy, Carthage and the Victorians: the drama of classical ruins in the 19thC imagination, CUP 2018 Bryant Davies, Rachel. Victorian Epic Burlesque, Bloomsbury, 2018 Dougherty, Carol. Travel and Home in Homer's Odyssey and Contemporary Literature: Critical Encounters and Nostalgic Returns Classical Presences. 2019. Goldhill, Simon. How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today. 2020. Goldhill, Simon. Who Needs Greek?: Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Hall, Alston and McConnell, Ancient Slavery and Abolition, OUP 2011 Marguerite Johnson (ed.) Antipodean Antiquities: Classical Reception Down Under. Bloomsbury, 2019 Macintosh, McConnell, Harrison and Kenward (eds), Epic Performances from the Middle Ages into the Twenty-First Century, OUP 2018 Maguire, Laurie E. Helen of Troy: From Homer to Hollywood. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Justine McConnell and Edith Hall, eds. Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989, Bloomsbury, 2016 Helen Morales, Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths, Wildfire 2020 Pache, C.O. (2008). "That's what I'll remember": Louise Glück’s Odyssey from nostos to nostalgia. Classical and Modern Literature, 28(2), 1-14.
Modern popular culture: Film, video games and comics Christesen, P.|Machado, D. "Video Games and Classical Antiquity." The Classical World. 104, 1: 107- 10. 2010 6
Kovacs, George, and Marshall, C. W. eds. Classics and Comics Classical Presences. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Kovacs, George, and Marshall, C. W., eds. Son of Classics and Comics Classical Presences. 2016. Michelakis, Pantelis. Greek Tragedy on Screen. Classical Presences. 2013. Michelakis, Pantelis, and Wyke, Maria, eds. The Ancient World in Silent Cinema 2013. Nikoloutsos, Konstantinos P. "FROM TEXT TO SCREEN: CELLULOID HELENS AND FEMALE STARDOM IN THE 1950s." The Cambridge Classical Journal 61 (2015): 70-90. Paul, Joanna. Film and the Classical Epic Tradition Classical Presences. 2013. Rogers, Brett M., and Stevens, Benjamin Eldon, eds. Classical Traditions in Science Fiction. Classical Presences. 2015. Rollinger, Christian. Classical Antiquity in Video Games: Playing with the Ancient World. IMAGINES – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts. 2020. Winkler, Martin M., ed. Troy: From Homer's Iliad to Hollywood Epic. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
War Poetry/ memorialisation James Tatum, The Mourner’s Song: War and Remembrance from the Iliad to Vietnam, University of Chicago Press, 2004 Elizabeth Vandiver, Stand in the Trench, Achilles: Classical Receptions in British Poetry of the Great War, OUP 2013
Postcolonial Ingy Aboelazm, ‘Africanising Greek Mythology: Femi Osofisan’s Retelling of Euripides’ The Trojan Women’, European Journal of Language and Literature Studies, 2016 4.1, 87-103 Budelmann, Felix. (2007). “Trojan Women in Yorubaland: Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu” in Lorna Hardwick and Carol Gillespie, eds. Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 15-39. Goff, Barbara E, and Simpson, Michael, eds. Crossroads in the Black Aegean: Oedipus, Antigone, and Dramas of the African Diaspora. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Greenwood, Emily. Afro-Greeks: Dialogues between Anglophone Caribbean Literature and Classics in the Twentieth Century. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Hardwick, Lorna, and Gillespie, Carol (eds). Classics in Post-colonial Worlds. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Götrick, Kacke. (2008). “Femi Osofisan’s Women of Owu: Paraphrase in Performance.” Research in African Literatures 39 (3): 82-98. Justine McConnell, Black Odysseys: The Homeric Odyssey in the African Diaspora since 1939, OUP 2013 Orrells, Daniel, Bhambra, Gurminder K., and Roynon, Tessa, eds. African Athena: New Agendas. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Shields, John C, and Lamore, Eric D. New Essays on Phillis Wheatley. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011. 7
Shields, John C. "Phillis Wheatley's Subversion of Classical Stylistics." Style (University Park, PA) 27, 2: 252-70. 1993 Wetmore, Kevin J. Black Dionysus: Greek Tragedy and African American Theatre, McFarland & Company, 2010 Wetmore, Kevin J. (2002). The Athenian Sun in an African Sky: Modern African Adaptations of Classical Greek Tragedy. Jefferson, North Carolina, London: McFarland & Company. Weyenberg, Astrid Van. (2013). The Politics of Adaptation: Contemporary African Drama And Greek Tragedy. Amsterdam: Rodopi
Adaptation and comparison Braund, Susanna Morton, and Torlone, Zara M., eds. Virgil and His Translators. Classical Presences. 2018. Cairns, David. (1968) "Berlioz and Virgil a Consideration of 'Les Troyens' as a Virgilian Opera." Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 95, 1: 97-110. Graziosi, Barbara, and Greenwood, Emily, eds. Homer in the Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and the Western Canon. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Harrison, S. J. ed. Living Classics : Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Lianeri, Alexandra, and Zajko, Vanda, eds. Translation and the Classic: Identity as Change in the History of Culture. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Pillinger, EMILY. (2010)"Translating Classical Visions in Berlioz's "Les Troyens"." Arion (Boston) 18, 2: 65-104. Riddiford, Alexander. 2009, “Homer's ‘Iliad’ and the ‘Meghanādbadha Kābya’ of Michael Madhusūdan Datta.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 72, 2: 335–356.
Gender Fiona Cox and Elena Theodorakopoulos, Homer’s Daughters: Women’s Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyond, OUP 2019 Cox, Fiona. Sibylline Sisters: Virgil's Presence in Contemporary Women's Writing. Classical Presences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Ingleheart, Jennifer. Masculine Plural: Queer Classics, Sex, and Education Classical Presences. 2018. (on Achilles, Patroclus, burlesque) Stuttard, David. Looking at Ajax. 2019.