Studies in Ancient Literature

W 3-6
2525 Tolman
L. McCarthy

This seminar will use Latin lyric and elegy as a specific test case in which to explore the complex relations between these poetic genres and their social context. Latin lyric and elegy can be seen as descendants of the Greek use of these genres in specific social and ritual contexts (e.g. the symposium) and yet also as precursors of the later forms that come to be called ‘lyric’, forms which emphasize the immediacy of the voice and the interior life of the speaker, rather than engagement with a social context. We can further sharpen this investigation by focusing on gender as a particular form of the social which, because it is naturalized to a very high degree, tends to be brought into even the most hermetic lyric. Among the topics we will consider are the gendering of speakers and addressees, homo- and heterosexuality within the symposium, the relation of literacy to orality, and the use of Sappho as a key figure for this literary tradition. The seminar will focus on Latin lyric and elegy, but will include related Greek poetry and some selected studies of reception by English-speaking authors (e.g. Pound and Propertius); there will also be opportunities for students to design projects centering on other literatures within the framework of the seminar.

Most readings will be in a xeroxed reader; I have ordered as recommended texts Wickham/Garrod’s OCT text of Horace and David Ferry’s translation of the Odes.