This seminar will take students through a reading of the whole of Homer’s Iliad. The first two weeks will be devoted to historical conditions around the work, including discussion of the nature of oral composition and aesthetic aspects of oral epic. The remaining eight weeks will be devoted to a consecutive reading of the poem, with the focus on such issues as the relations between the gods and human beings, between one human being and another, the making of the hero, destiny, choice, free will, and the tragic consequences of a human individual’s choices.
