The Human Order

MLS 602

Fall 2005

Steve Phelan

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND QUESTIONS:

Something happened in Greece in the middle of the millennium before the Christian era. From a galaxy of creative minds and cultural institutions came the formation of a totally new kind of civilization and order. In a sense, the whole of what we take now to be the University, the array of departments of knowledge and theory, was formulated in a few hundred years. What made this happen? Was it alphabet, democracy, rhetoric, the pursuit of virtue, skepticism about the old myths, mathematics and scientific proof? What is the quintessence of the Greek spirit that created philosophy and embarked so courageously upon new forms of art and language to establish such a rich sense of the human order?

The natural, spiritual, social, and political philosophies of the Greeks represent a comprehensive effort to shape the human community according to a universal order in which human beings have a natural place and a natural purpose. Greece evolved from theocratic monarchies in city-states to an alliance of oligarchies to a democratic republic, and finally an empire. When that quickly collapsed after the death of Alexander, Rome rose up to absorb Greece and play out essentially the same cycle from republic to empire to the chaos of vandalism and the terrors of warrior tribes from the north.

In this course we will explore the major documents of ancient Greece and Rome to discover how both the artistic temperament and the dream of reason allowed this culture to discover the natural order, practice virtue and politics, experiment with democracy, and discover the triumphs and the sorrows of empire. The questions we will ask of the ancient poets, philosophers, and artists will naturally be attuned to the problems of our own age:

1. What role does community have in creating and fostering an ordered existence?
2. What does the individual “owe” to the state?
3. What price does the individual have to pay for civilization?
4. How does a heroic society differ from a democratic or a theocratic system?
5. How does our democracy stack up against the Greeks’?
6. What is the New World Order and how human is it?
7. What effects do large-scale capitalism and globalization have on the human order?
8. What would the ancients say about nuclear weapons, terrorism, genetic engineering, the American republic/empire?

TEXTS:

The following editions, available in your friendly bookstore, will be the ones used in class. However, you may wish to use other editions you already own or pay more for the complete works of particular authors in standard or critical editions.

The Epic of Gilgamesh. Biggs, tr. Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997.

Hesiod and Theognis. Wender, ed. Penguin, 1973.

Homer. The Iliad. Fagles tr. Penguin, 1990.

The Odyssey. Fitzgerald tr. Farrar, Strauss, 1998.

Barnes. Early Greek Philosophy. Penguin, 2001.

Gottlieb. The Dream of Reason. Norton, 2002.

Greene and Lattimore, ed.. Greek Tragedies. Vol. 1. Chicago, 1991.

Plato. Five Dialogues. Grube, tr. Hackett, 2002.

Symposium and Phaedrus. Dover, 1993.

Aristotle. Basic Works of Aristotle. Random House, 2001

Sappho: A New Translation. Barnard, tr. California, 1986.

Vergil. The Aeneid. Fitzgerald, tr. Random House, 1983.

Ovid. Metamorphoses. Humphries, tr. Indiana, 1955.

Neumann. Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine. Princeton, 1971.

CLASS PREPARATION:

In graduate work, all the reading is generally conceived as your own research, following your own interests and needs

Each week you will have to make a distinction between background reading and careful study of the great books, adjusting the speed of your reading accordingly:

For background, you scan quickly and take the shortest route to comprehend the author’s time and culture, the author’s place in the tradition, and the scope of the author’s corpus of writings and lifework. You can get the first two items from an encyclopedia, handbook, or the introduction to an edition. If you want more, for most major authors you can find a thin little volume that passes for a simple, but comprehensive introduction (e.g. Plato within Your Grasp).

For detailed reading of the author’s major works, you sail through all the chapters or parts, perhaps producing an outline or a sense of its structures, and then generate a thesis or apply an element of theory to a careful study of relevant portions of the text. This becomes the basis for whatever written responses you choose to present in class.

In the following list of discussion topics and readings, wherever two works of the same author are listed, you may focus on one or the other. If you have not read either, read one carefully and get a summary of the other. If you have read one, but not the other, focus on the other in the context of the one you know. On the opening day of class we will set forth the written requirements for each unit: focus papers (FP), worksheets presenting a thesis with an outline of evidence, or creative responses (CR).

Items in the syllabus with an asterisk are not provided in the textbooks. Sometimes they will be supplied as handouts or read in class (one asterisk) and sometimes you will have to find your own text in the library or on the web (two asterisks).

Week	Date	Syllabus of Reading Assignments and Classroom Activities
		Literatures of the Fertile Crescent
1)	Aug. 22	Introduction and Thesis Workshop
		Myths of Creation: The Babylonian Enuma Elish* and the Hebrew Genesis *
		The Greek Alphabet: starting your own glossary project
2)	A. 29	Sumeria and Babylonia: The Epic of Gilgamesh (FP1)
		The Triumph that is Greece
		Hesiod: Works and Days
3)	Sept. 5	no class
4)	Sept. 12	Homer’s Iliad
		(FP2 on the appropriate day, plot summary for the other)
5)	Sept. 19	Homer’s Odyssey
6)	Sept. 26	The Pre-Socratics: scan all and focus on one (CR1)
7)	Oct. 3	Aeschylus: The Oresteia
		Agamemnon
		Prometheus Bound
8)	Oct. 10	Sophocles: Antigone and Oedipus Rex (FP3)
		Aristotle’s Poetics
9)	Oct.17	Euripides: Medea**
		Aristophanes: Lysistrata**
10)	Oct. 24	Greek Architecture and Art
		The Perseus Project
11)	Oct. 31	Plato:
		Early Socratic Dialogues: Euthyphro, The Apology, Crito
		The Mature Period: The Republic and Symposium
		The Late Period: Timaeus**
12)	Nov. 7	Aristotle (aka, the College of Arts and Sciences): Metaphysics, Ethics, Logic, Rhetoric, Psychology, Biology, Poetry and Theater, Politics, Mechanics, Economics, Zoology, Meteorology, Cosmology, Epistemology
		Selections from the Organon, the Ethics, the Politics, the Metaphysics
13)	Nov.14	The Classical Love Lyric:
		Sappho (Greece)
		The Glory that is Rome
		Catullus: (Rome)*
		Ovid: The Amores and The Art of Love (Rome)* (CR2)
14)	Nov. 21	Vergil: The Aeneid (FP4 on one or the other)
		Ovid: The Metamorphoses
15)	Nov. 28	Apuleius: “Cupid and Psyche” from The Golden Ass
		The questions for the take-home final examination.
16)	Dec. 5	The Final: a Symposium (mi casa)

GRADE FORMULA:

Focus papers and other responses: 60%

Final: 20%

Participation, incl. attendance: 20%

Nota Bene: The focus papers, creative responses, and worksheets are due at class on Monday night. Late work will not be accepted for grading. Attendance and discussion are an essential part of the course. If you have to miss a class (may the gods forfend it!), please let me know in advance, if you can, and submit your paperwork via email attachment by Monday.

COMMUNICATIONS:

It is essential that you read your Rollins email each week. Frequently I will send specific instructions about the reading assignments and other particulars of the course. The best way to contact me is through email; second-best is voice-mail at Rollins.

Steve Phelan, Professor of English

Office: Carnegie 103

Phones: 407-646-2409 (daytime), 407-644-9025 (nights from 7-9; weekends)

Email: phelan@rollins.edu

Website: http://fox.rollins.edu/~phelan