BASC61133 - Alumni Sequence: Romans Year I

Course Description

The Spring Seminar will explore Roman comedy and drama, starting with Roman comic novel, The Golden Ass, and Plautus’ comic play Manaechmi. Then we will read three plays connected with the myth of Phaedra and Hippolytus - one Greek, one Roman, and one French – to see the influences, connections and differences among these dramatic styles.The Spring Tutorial offers two analyses of the successes and failures of the Roman Empire, one from the perspective of a contemporary conquered subject during its rise, and one from a later European looking back over the whole arc of Roman history.

Course Outline

Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Penguin Classics, trans. E.J. Kenney, ISBN 978-0140435900

Plautus, Four Comedies: The Braggart Soldier; The Brothers Menaechmus; The Haunted House; The Pot of Gold (Oxford World's Classics), ISBN 978-0199540563

Euripides, Euripides I: Alcestis, Medea, The Children of Heracles, Hippolytus (The Complete Greek Tragedies) University of Chicago Press, ISBN 978-0226308807

Seneca, Phaedra and Other Plays (Penguin Classics), ISBN 978-0140455519

Racine, Phèdre: A Play, trans. Ted Hughes (Farrer, Straus and Giroux), ISBN‎ 978-0374526160

Polybius, The Histories Oxford University Press 978-0199534708

Montesquieu Consideration on the Causes for the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline Hackett Publishing Company 978-0872204966

Notes

Online registration closes Friday, March 15 at 5 pm CT.

You will receive an invitation to join the Canvas site for the course a week before the class begins. The Zoom link for the course will be in Canvas. For more information about Canvas, please see our Remote Learning Resources page.