GREEK 501 A: Homer

GREEK  501: THE ILIAD

Winter Quarter 2024, TTh 2:30-4:20pm, Denny 257

Professor Olga Levaniouk

Office: Denny M262B
E-mail: olevan@uw.edu

DESCRIPTION:

This year's course on Homer will be devoted to the Iliad. We'll try an experimental format, a bit of a "choose your own adventure," in an attempt to give some of you a chance to prepare for the Greek exam and the rest of you a chance to read some books that are not on the reading list.

            Each week, we'll encounter several books of the Iliad—two in some weeks, as many as four in week six.  I will select focus passages for us to zoom in upon—everyone is required to read these passages. Beyond that, you are asked to read one book of the Iliad per week; it is your choice which of the assigned books to read.

            Each class will be divided into two parts: slow reading and fast reading/general discussion (not necessarily in that order). In the slow reading part, we’ll zoom in on the focus passages and look at small bits of text very closely. This will be the time for the nitty-gritty of Homeric grammar, meter, language, textual problems and anything else that comes up in the process of slow reading. In the second part, we’ll change to a wide-angle lens to talk about more general questions brought up by each book and the poem as a whole. There will be some (ungraded) sight reading. As we read, we will discuss the Iliad both in its specifics and as an example of oral traditional poetry in Ancient Greece. Required secondary reading will be kept to a minimum but you will have plentiful recommended readings designed to give you an idea about the current state of Homeric research.

SCHEDULE OF READINGS

REQUIRED TEXT:

D. Monro and T. Allen, Homeri Opera I-II. First edition 1920, countless reprints.

I think the OCT text, for all its faults, is still the best in print but you may also use West's Teubner (Homeri Ilias, vol. I 1998, vol. II 2001) if you prefer.

PARTICIPATION

• Please try hard to keep up with the reading and come to class ready to contribute. Please still come to class even if you haven't been able to keep up with the readings.
• there will a few ungraded sight-translation quizzes (mostly for me to know how we are doing)

EVALUATION

• class participation
• a short report on your project in the last week of class (5-10 minutes).
• a short project of anywhere between 5 and 10 pages. This does not have to be an original or fully-fledged research paper, but can be an evidence-gathering or synthesizing project—stay tuned for more details.

COMMENTARIES:

Kirk, G. gen. ed. The Iliad: A Commentary. Cambridge 1985.

Bierl, A. and Latacz, J. Homer’s Iliad. The Basel Commentary. De Gruyter 2015-.

Bierl, A. and Latacz, J. Homers Iliad. Gesamtkommentar. München 2000-. The original version of the above.

Nagy, G., Frame, D., Muellner, L. A sampling of Comments on the Iliad and Odyssey  (parts of A Homer Commentary in Progress): https://homer.oc.newalexandria.info/           

RECOMMENDED BOOKS:

Some of the books below are available online, in pdf format, etc. You are not required to purchase any of them, but they are good to consult on various general and introductory subjects.

Bierl, A. and Latacz, J. 2015. Homer’s Iliad. The Basel Commentary: Prolegomena. De Gruyter.  (contains R. Wachter’s Grammar of Homeric Greek, which is concise and useful especially on adaptations to meter; it by no means replaces Chantraine, but has the advantage of being in English)

Cunliffe, R. 1977. A Lexicon of the Homeric Dialect. Norman.  A handy dictionary considerably more up to date than LSJ; can be very useful especially for those who do not have much experience with Homer.

Chantraine, P. 1958. Grammaire Homérique. Paris  Remains the best grammar of Homeric Greek, even if it is slowly getting dated.

Gary Miller, 2014. Ancient Greek Dialects and Early Authors. De Gruyte. (Useful on the hexameter and Homeric language. LinkLinks to an external site.)

Pache, C., ed. 2020. The Cambridge Guide to Homer. (a very useful mid-size encyclopedia of all things Homer; available online through the UW library)

Finkelberg, M. 2011. The Homer Encyclopedia. (very extensive, unevenly aging, very useful in parts as such things usually are) 

Lord. A. The Singer of Tales. Cambridge Mass. 1960/2000. Both a classic and a source of endless controversy; all those who study Homer seriously should read it for themselves. Especially important is the first part (which does not deal with Homer directly).

Nagy, G. Homeric Questions. Austin 1996 (a brief guide to crucial disputes of Homeric scholarship).

Schironi, F. 2018. The Best of the Grammarians: Aristarchus of Samothrace on the Iliad. University of Michigan (an extensive study of the Homeric scholia and what they reveal about Aristarchus' methodology and Alexandrian scholarship on Homer)

Dué, C. 2019. Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics. CHS. (a good introduction to the question of multiformity and its consequences)

ACADEMIC SUPPORT   

Disability Resources:

If you have not yet established services through DRS, but have a temporary health condition or permanent disability that requires accommodations (conditions include but not limited to; mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing, physical or health impacts), you are welcome to contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or uw.edu. DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions. Reasonable accommodations are established through an interactive process between you, your instructor(s) and DRS. It is the policy and practice of the University of Washington to create inclusive and accessible learning environments consistent with federal and state law.

Religious accommodations

“Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/)Links to an external site.. Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/)Links to an external site..”