The Iliad and its Legacies in Drama

Semester and Year	FA 2012
Course Number	IDSEM-UG1454
Section	001
Instructor	Laura Slatkin
Days	Wed
Time	3:30 PM - 6:10 PM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement	HUM, PREMOD

Notes/Restrictions

Same as COLIT-UA 104.

Description

"The poem of force," according to Simone Weil, the Iliad  is also a poem of forceful influence. In this course we will read the Iliad intensively, followed by an examination of its heritage on the dramatic stage. In the first half of the semester we will primarily explore the Iliad  in terms of the poetics of traditionality; the political economy of epic; the ideologics of the  Männerbund  (the "band of fighting brothers"); the Iliad 's uses of reciprocity; its construction of gender; its intimations of tragedy. In the second half of the course, informed by a reading of Aristotle's Poetics , we will focus on responses to the Iliad  in dramatic form; possible readings will include Sophocles' Ajax ; Euripides' Iphigeneia in Aulis ; Shakespeare's  Troilus and Cressida ; Racine's  Andromaque ; Giraudoux's La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu;  Ellen McLaughlin's  Iphigenia and Other Daughters.  Students will give presentations on an Iliadic intertext of their own choosing.

Syllabus

IDSEM-UG1454

Course Type

Interdisciplinary Seminars (IDSEM-UG)