Dr. James C. Anderson, jr.

Park Hall 233; 542-2170
email: janderso@uga.edu

Welcome to Dr. Anderson's section of CLAS 1020, Classical Mythology. This course will consist of a survey of the gods and goddesses, cults and sanctuaries, heroes and heroines, and tales and sagas of the Greeks and Romans. Since it is primarily intended as a literature course – and satisfies the Franklin College Literature requirement – the subject will be approached primarily through ancient literature. We will proceed through the body of mythological literature more-or-less in the order that the Greeks thought was the chronology of their religious mythology: we begin with Creation and the rise of the Olympians, the nature of Olympian cult and story, then proceed to the great sagas of mortal (or semi-mortal) heroes and heroines, and finish with the events of the Trojan War and its aftermath, which the Greeks viewed as the end of the Age of Myth.

In the course you will read extensive selections from Greek and Latin literature in English translation, including epic and narrative poets (Hesiod, Homer, Apollonius, Vergil, Ovid), drama (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), lyric poets (the Homeric Hymns, Pindar), philosophers (Plato), and a variety of other sources. At the same time, we will study the visual iconography of myth and mythological characters through close attention to representations of them in both Greco-Roman and later art and architecture.

Your primary aims in the course should be: 1) to gain a fairly detailed knowledge of the names, descriptions, narrative functions, major literary versions, and iconography (both written and visual) of the deities and heroic figures of classical mythology; 2) to read an extensive variety of treatments, mostly ancient, of a number of the most important mythological tales and cycles and to understand the main plot lines and important variants that occur in these narratives; and 3) to begin to appreciate the value and importance of Greco-Roman myth and legend as a body of narratives and of meanings upon which all subsequent Western literature and art has drawn, in the same way it has drawn upon the Judaeo-Christian Bible as a source for plot, character, meaning, and symbol.