Over the course of the year (first semester with me, second with Professor Christopher McDonough also of Classics Department) we shall have the opportunity to read and study some of the basic books and ideas of the western intellectual and spiritual tradition-from Homer and the Bible to Dante and Shakespeare.  The first semester will concern itself with the history and intellectual preoccupations of the Greeks and Romans (and of most thinking people throughout most of history): gods and humans, freedom and necessity, individual and society, liberty and justice, war and peace, rich and poor, master and slave, male and female, old and young.  Readings and themes for this semester will be distributed approximately as follows:
 
 

Weeks I and 2 (9/5,7, 12, 14): "The Iliad: Poem of Force" is Simone Weil's beautiful essay (handout: read it).  By "force" she means "violence." The Iliad is also a poem about "pity." Read books 1-6 and 9, and observe the workings of pity in the midst of extreme violence.  Iliad 16-24 is the tragedy of Achilles.  Why tell the story of the great-and justly deserved--victory against Troy as a tragedy?  Note especially the scene between Achilles and Priam in book 24.
 
 

Week 3 (9/19, 21): The Odyssey 1-12 and selections from 13-24.  What about heroes and "heroism?" Why does Odysseus cry when asked to tell his story in Book 8? Lecture on Greek History up to the 5' century B.C. Introduction to Greek Tragedy.
 
 

Week 4 (9/26, 28): Aeschylus's Oresteia and complicated questions of revenge
and justice; duty to self, to family, and to the gods; public versus private justice.
 
 

Week 5 (10/3, 5): Sophocles's Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. Fate, freedom, and the Greek tragic view of the world (for which recall also Achilles in the Iliad).
 
 

Week 6 (10/10, 12): Antigone and the conflicts of family vs. society, individual vs.
state, conscience and law.

Week 7 (10/17, 19): Euripides's Medea. Male and female, Greek and barbarian, and the limits of revenge.  Introduction to Greek Philosophy by way of Socrates's Apology and Crito.
 
 

Weeks 8, 9 and 10 (10/24, 26, 31, 11/2, 7, 9): More on Socrates and the meaning of his life and death.  Plato's Republic and the Platonic world view as it relates to questions of Ethics Oustice and the other virtues), epistemology, and metaphysics.
 
 

Weeks 11, 12, 13 and 14 (11/14, 16, 21, 28, 30, 12/5, 7): Careful reading of Vergil's Aeneid for the ideology--and the problematic-of Rome's historic destiny.  On Saturday 12/2 at 2:00 PM the whole first year Honors Program will attend the A.R.T. production of Antigone in Cambridge.
 
 

Books

The following are available in the BC bookstore-and elsewhere.  Please use the
translations indicated:
 
 

Homer, The Iliad, translated by Robert Fitzgerald.
.., The Odyssey, translated by Stanley Lombardo.
Aeschylus, The Oresteia, translated by Hugh Lloyd-Jones.
Sophocles, The Theban Plays, translated by Robert Fagles.
Euripides, Medea and Other Plays, translated by James Morwood.
Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, translated by Hugh Tredennick.
'The Republic, translated by Allan Bloom.
Vergil, The Aeneid, translated by Robert Fitzgerald.
 
 

Requirements

Careful reading of the daily assignments.  Regular attendance and active participation in class.  A weekly short essay (3/4 pages) on an assigned topic.  Occasional class presentations.  A reading journal: each time you sit down to read note the time, the book, and what you think you already know about and what plan to get out of it.  After reading write down your thoughts--whatever they are-even if it is only to copy out a passage which strikes you as interesting or important.  I shall ask to see your j oumals from time to time.  They should help you with papers.  Grading will be roughly on the basis of 1/3 for class participation, 1/3 for the weekly essays, and 1/3 for the final examination or paper.  You should plan to invest 15-20 hours/week (including class time) in this course.