Eros in Ancient Greece

CLASSICAL STUDIES 209

EROS IN ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE

Professor Radcliffe G. Edmonds III

Office: Thomas 245

Office Phone: 526-5046

redmonds@brynmawr.edu

Carpenter 25

TTh 2:30-4:00

Office Hours: MW 1:00-2:00

or by appointment

Required Texts:

Apuleius, Lucius, The Golden Ass (trans. Walsh)

Aristophanes, The Birds & Other Plays Vol. 1 (Halliwell ed.)

Bing, Peter, ed., Games of Venus: An Anthology of Greek & Roman Erotic Verse from Sappho to Ovid (GV)

Euripides, Four Tragedies No. 1 (trans. Grene, etal. )

Halperin, David M. edt, Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (BS)

Hesiod, Works & Days & Theogony (trans. Lombardo)

Homer, The Odyssey (trans. Fagles)

Longus, Marc Chagall, Daphnis & Chloe (trans. Turner)

Plato, The Symposium & the Phaedrus: Plato's Erotic Dialogues (Cobb ed.)

Course Description:

"Eros, Eros, distilling liquid desire upon the eyes, bringing sweet pleasure to souls,… he ruins mortals and launches them among every kind of disaster when he visits them" (Euripides, Hippolytus). For the ancient Greeks the passion of love (eros) was a great and terrible force, sublimely sweet but at the same time violent and dangerous to those in its grip. In this course, we will explore the ancient Greek's ideas of love, from the interpersonal loves between people of the same or different genders to the cosmogonic Eros that creates and holds together the entire world. We will look at the ways the idea of eros is expressed not only in the poets, but also in philosophical and historical writings and in the romance novels of the ancient Greeks.

This course is intended to expose the student to the varying ideas of Eros within Greek culture. The student should have the opportunity to reflect upon the way that these concepts of love helped to articulate the social structures of Greek culture, including gender roles, courtship, and marriage. The student should also have the opportunity to explore how ideas of interpersonal eros were used to explain and describe the forces that bind together the entire cosmos and all the living creatures within it.

Course Requirements:

Class participation:

Participation, of course, includes attendance, since you cannot participate if you are not in class. If, for some reason, you cannot attend class, please inform me in advance. You should be prepared to discuss and answer questions on the material covered in the lesson for the week. If, for some reason, you cannot prepare for class, please attend anyway - you will be better prepared for the next class.

Each week's assignment will include both the primary ancient texts and some secondary modern scholarship. Each student should come prepared with two or three questions or ideas regarding the ancient texts for the day. In addition, one student will be assigned to write and present a one page reaction for each of the secondary readings for the week. Such reactions should consist, not of a summary of the article, but rather of points of agreement and disagreement and of questions for further discussion.

All readings not in the required textbooks will be available online in the Bryn Mawr electronic reserves at: http://trires.brynmawr.edu/coursepage.asp?cid=688. The magic word that allows the initiate access to the readings is: cstsb209. The readings can be reached directly from the online version of the syllabus at: http://www.brynmawr.edu/classics/redmonds/csts209.html.

Written Assignments:

There will be two short (6-8 pages) written assignments designed for the students to demonstrate their understanding of specific materials covered in class. These projects may require some out of class research in addition to the readings assigned for the class. The first writing assignment (due in the sixth week) will involve the analysis of lyric love poems, while the second (due in the thirteenth week) will involve composing a symposiastic speech in praise of eros.

Examinations:

There will be take-home Midterm and Final Examinations for this class. Each of these examinations will require students to apply the analyses and definitions discussed throughout the course to primary materials.

Grade Distribution:

Class Participation 35%

Written Assignments 30%

Midterm Exam 15%

Final Exam 20%

Week 1 Introduction to Eros

1/21-25

Topics:

Course Introduction

Definitions of Eros

Eros in the Greek Literary Tradition

Readings:

Plato, Symposium

Week 2 Cosmogonic Eros

1/28-2/1

Topics:

Eros and cosmogony

Creation and Procreation

Creation of women (and men)

Eros and Violence

Readings:

Hesiod, Theogony, Works & Days

fragments of Empedokles & Pherekydes

Redfield, The Sexes in Hesiod

Zeitlin, Signifying Difference: The case of Hesiod's Pandora

Week 3 Homer's Eros

2/4-8

Topics:

Odysseus the Bridegroom

Penelope and Marital Fidelity

Homeric Aphrodite and the loves of the gods

Readings:

Homer, Odyssey

Aphrodite in the Iliad

Winkler, Penelope's Cunning and Homer's

Redfield, Sex into Politics (BS)

Week 4 Eros and Marriage

2/11-15

Topics:

Seduction and abduction

Choruses of Young Women

Marriage as a rite of passage

Readings:

Homeric Hymns to Demeter & Aphrodite

Alcman (GV pp. 61-67) & Theocritus 18

Foley, Interpretive Essay on the Homeric Hymn to Demeter

Redfield, Notes on the Greek Wedding

Week 5 Lyric Love

2/18-22

Topics:

Poetics of Eros

Courtship and Romance

Pursuit and Despair

Boys and Girls

Readings:

Archilochus (esp. Cologne Epode), Mimnermos, Sappho (esp. 1, 3, 16, 31), Ibycus, Anacreon, Theognis, Asclepiades, Callimachus, Theocritus 1, 3, 11 (GV)