FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR IN EUROPEAN HISTORY:
GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY
Fulfills Perspectives-History requirement

HIST 1322-001                                                                                                                    
Mon 2PM-4:50—120 Dallas Hall
Prof. Melissa Dowling—51 Dallas Hall—214-768-2976   mdowling@smu.edu 
 

This seminar offers an introduction to Greek mythology through great works of ancient literature.  It was the poems and plays of Archaic and Classical Greece that framed the myths in the forms we know them today. Mythologies of all cultures are not static entities, however; they are molded and adapted as artists, authors and audiences face new challenges and raise new questions. We will examine how and why Greek authors refashioned the important myths of their culture. Beginning with Homer, Greek myths explored the human inclination to war and competition, the quest for glory and immortality, and the equal needs for peace and reconciliation. Aeschylus balanced divine and human law. Euripides asked how one recognizes a god in one’s midst and what happens when our understanding of the divine is radically altered. Sophocles investigated the dangers and the freedoms of the new democratic state. Aristophanes poked fun at the great Athenian playwrights and at the gods themselves. From the beginnings of Greek literature to Roman conquest, the most important questions of human life were asked in the form of myth. We will read and analyze these works in order to understand the ways in which the Greeks saw their world and to understand why these stories remain the core of the Western tradition.
 

Readings will include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey on the Trojan War, Hesiod's Theogony on the gods and human creation, plays by Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes, Apollonius Rhodius' epic poem on Jason and the Golden Fleece, and Aesop's fables