CLCV 222

Spring 2018 All Classes

All Classes

The Tragic Spirit

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Credit: 3 hours.

Readings in the tragic drama of Greece and Rome; a systematic study of the contents and development of this classical literary/dramatic genre.

Same as CWL 264 and THEA 210. Prerequisite: Sophomore standing or consent of instructor.

This course satisfies the General Education Criteria in Fall 2022 for:

Humanities – Lit & Arts

Cultural Studies - Western

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CLCV 222 class schedule data for spring 2018
	CRN	Type	Section	Time	Day	Location	Instructor	Section Details
	67447	Lecture-Discussion	CHP	11:00AM -11:50AM	MWF	212 1205 W Oregon	Traill, A	Part of Term: 1 Date Range: 01/16/18-05/02/18 Degree Notes: Humanities - Lit & Arts, and Cultural Studies - Western course. Section Info: If you know the story of Medea, who punished her cheating husband Jason by murdering their children, you know what Greek drama is all about: oversize emotions, terrible actions, bitter consequences. It’s about people being pushed to their limits and disasters unfolding with a kind of horrible inevitability, while ordinary people, known as “the chorus,” look on in shock. If you find intense human conflict fascinating, Greek drama is where it all started. We will read plays from four famous Greek and Roman tragedians: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Seneca. Their influence on western culture cannot be overstated. These four playwrights constitute the core of surviving ancient tragedy tragedy, which inspired Renaissance drama and through it nearly all subsequent stage plays, not to mention opera, musicals, movies, television and other dramatic forms, in the Western tradition. Since the “tragic spirit” is more than Oedipal conflicts and revenge plots, however, we are also reading some spin-offs. The most famous, Aristophanes’ comedy The Frogs, makes fun of the tragic playwrights. Other plays, such as Euripides’ Ion, gave the tragic form a happy ending and eventually led to the development of romantic comedy under writers like Menander and his later Roman adaptors, Plautus and Terence. We will read a couple of their comedies, too. We will be examining the plays as reflections of the politics, social climate and religious beliefs of the societies that produced them. This course will develop your skills in close reading, comparing and contrasting, and researching, developing and presenting a literary argument. You will learn about the life and work of the playwrights mentioned above, as well as conventions governing the theater of their day and select critical approaches to, and interpretations of, their work. This class satisfies the general education criteria for a Literature and the Arts/Western Comparative Culture(s) course. Instructor: Ariana Traill (B.A. University of Toronto 1991, Ph.D. Harvard 1997) is an Associate Professor in the Department of the Classics. She is also affiliated with Theater Studies. Her research interests include Greek and Roman comedy, women in antiquity, and the reception of ancient comedy. She is the author of Women and the Comic Plot in Menander (Cambridge, 2008) and co-editor of A Companion to Terence (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013, with Antony Augoustakis). Current book projects include a commentary and edited volume on Plautus' Cistellaria, and a translation of Menander's Periceiromene. Restriction(s): Restricted to Chancellor's Scholar-CHPHonors students.