R. Hexter
Seminar TR 10:30 AM 11:50 AM OLSON 00101
The Homeric Epics and Their Reception
The Homeric epics, Iliad and Odyssey, are often hailed as the foundation of “Western” literature, but there is and has always been no little uncertainty about the building blocks of that foundation. For one thing, who was Homer? Was there just one? Did he or they even exist? These questions form the core of the so-called “Homeric Question.” Our seminar will begin with this question and some of its ramifications and possible solutions. We will then move on to explore chapters in the reception history of the two poems from the time of their coming into being to the modern day, across genres and languages. What subsequent authors, eras, and cultures made of the Homeric epics proved as mutable and malleable as the poems themselves apparently were before they were written down. While the reception of the Homeric poems is the theme, students will be introduced to reception studies as a discipline. We will read selections of both primary texts and secondary literature. All required reading is in English, but students are welcome to consult the original versions. It is presumed that all students have some familiarity with both epics (in translation) at the outset of the course. As a concluding exercise, based on their interests within this vast and extraordinary rich field, each student will devise a topic on which they will make a presentation, which in turn will form the basis of their final paper.