Study Questions/HumCore Week 7/Spring 2011

Zina Giannopoulou (zgiannop@uci.edu)

A Glance at Unit 3

1. The last unit of the cycle brings together the course’s three thematic components—divinity, society, and nature—and examines how they interrelate and how humans relate to each of them.

2. It emphasizes the importance of close readings of texts that belong to different genres—epic poetry, tragedy, and philosophy—and span four centuries of the ancient Greek literary production (7^th to 4^th c. BCE).

3. It introduces students to four major authors of Classical literature—Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato—and shows how their works may be read in conjunction with one another.

Questions for Week 1

1. Why do the Homeric heroes interact so much with nature?

2. How do the Homeric similes use nature?

3. How does Homer create a sense of equality between Achilles and his horses in the passage from the Iliad?

4. Are Achilles’ horses in any way superior to their master? Are they in any way inferior to him?

5. How does Homer convey Scylla and Charybdis’ monstrosity, as well as Odysseus’ men’s helplessness in the passage from the Odyssey?

6. What is the nature of Dionysus’ liminality in Euripides’ Bacchae?

7. ‘Doubling’ is a frequently used motif in the Bacchae. How many ‘twos’ are there in the play and how do they blur the distinction between human and god, society and nature, human and beast?

8. How does Dionysus threaten the social order in Thebes?

9. What differentiates Asian barbarism from Greek civilization?

10. How does nature in the Bacchae differ from the city?