Spring 2004

GK 383 • Studies in Classical Greek Literature

Course Description

This seminar is designed as an introduction to the literature of the Second Sophistic (the Greek prose writings of the High Roman Empire (ca.50-250 CE)). To this end, we will be reading several works by two of the period's most important authors: the satirist Lucian of Samosata (c.120-180 CE) and the philosopher, essayist, and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea (c.50-120 CE). The theme of the seminar will be the 'staging of the past' in the Second Sophistic - that is, the imaginative depiction of archaic and classical Greek culture in such texts as Plutarch's Banquet of the Seven Sages and On Socrates' Daimonion, and Lucian's The Scythian, A Conversation with Hesiod, selected Dialogues of the Courtesans, and Herodotus, among others (they're short!). In addition, to gain broader knowledge of the Second Sophistic as a whole, we will read general secondary material (e.g., Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire; Goldhill (ed.) Being Greek Under Rome) and relevant ancient texts, such as Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists, in translation.

Texts

Luciani Opera, vol. III. M.D. MacLeod (ed.) Oxford. Philostratus & Eunapius, Lives of the Sophists. W.C. Wright (tr.) Loeb Classical Library. R. Lamberton (2002) Plutarch. Yale University Press.

back