Schedule C

Overview

The Greek literature papers in Part IB are designed to offer you a wide choice of topics representing texts from across the field of ancient Greek literature. Within this spread, however, we regard it as very important that during the Part I years everyone should study authors who have always been regarded as central to any engagement with the literature of Greece and Rome; this is the reason why, in the first year, there is a much more narrowly defined syllabus of target texts. The topics studied in the second year focus largely on texts in these same areas, but also afford the opportunity to range more widely outside the traditional canon.

Each paper includes two groups of texts labelled List A (the ‘core’ texts of that topic to be read in the original Greek) and List B (those offering scope for further exploration).

Non-intensive-Greek (non-IG) candidates (i.e. those offering Paper A1) for any of these papers will be required to have read all texts in the List A of a topic studied for examination. Intensive-Greek (IG) candidates (i.e. those offering Papers A2-3) have reduced prescriptions, as set out below.

 

Aims and objectives

1. To introduce samples of the variety and scope of ancient Greek literature and their importance to later literary traditions.
2. To place that literature in a historical and cultural context, in accordance with the general aims and scope of the Part I course.
3. To introduce the variety of critical approaches possible in the study of classical literature and current trends in criticism.
4. To develop the practice of literary and textual interpretation at the level of detail through ‘close reading’ in Greek.

 

Scope and structure of the examination papers 2025–26

Each paper, taken as a 2-hour in-person examination (not including reasonable adjustments), is divided into three Sections (A, B and C). Sections A and B each contain a choice of passages from the List A texts: candidates are asked to discuss one passage. Section C contains a choice of essay questions, of which candidates should attempt one.

Different prescriptions apply to different groups of candidates:

• Non-intensive-Greek (Non-IG) candidates (i.e. those offering Paper A1) should attempt Sections A and C. Each section is worth 50% of the marks available for the paper.
• Intensive-Greek (IG) candidates (i.e. those offering Papers A2-3) should attempt Sections B and C. Each section is worth 50% of the marks available for the paper.

Unless otherwise stated, extracts from set texts presented in examinations will follow the prescribed editions listed below.

 

Papers

C1 THE ILIAD

PROF. R GAGNE / MR F. BASSO (8L: Michaelmas)

This module is designed as an introduction to early Greek epic, with a focus on the Iliad. List A readings track the most critical moments in Achilles’ story, but our focus nonetheless always remains on the Iliad as an integral, monumental whole. Extensive readings in translation allow us to study the Greek epic tradition in its full breadth and provide crucial context for understanding the Iliad in all its depth. General introductory lectures will be followed by close readings of List A and B texts.

List A

• Non-IG: Homer, Iliad 1; 6.237-529; 22.1-515; 24.1-187 and 440-804; the remainder of the Iliad to be read in translation.
• IG: Homer, Iliad 1.1-356; 6.237-529; 22.1-366; 24.468-776; the remainder of the Iliad to be read in translation.

List B (for ALL candidates)

Homer, Odyssey; Hesiod, Theogony; summaries and fragments of the Trojan Cycle (in M.L. West ed., Greek Epic Fragments from the Seventh to the Fifth Centuries BC (Cambridge MA, 2003)). 

Introductory readings

Students are advised to read as much as possible of the List A and B texts ahead of time. Introductions to the materials and further bibliography for orientation may be found in: Rutherford, R., Homer (2nd edn), Cambridge 2013 and Gainsford, P., Early Greek Hexameter Poetry, Cambridge 2016. Both volumes are concise and available online.

Prescribed editions for examination

Homeri Opera, vols. 1 and 2, edited by D.B. Monro and T.W. Allen, Oxford (3rd edn) 1976.

Suggested commentaries

The Iliad is very well served by commentaries. We recommend as a starting point both the Cambridge Green and Yellow series (S. Schein, 2022 (Book 1; print only); B. Graziosi and J. Haubold, 2010 (Book 6; print only); I. de Jong, 2012 (Book 22); C. Macleod, 1982 (Book 24)) and the Basel series, of which only two relevant volumes are currently available in English (M. Stoevesandt, 2016 (Book 6); C. Brügger, 2017 (Book 24)). We also recommend S. Pulleyn, Homer: Iliad Book 1 (Oxford 2001).

In addition you may wish to consult the older Cambridge commentary (G. S. Kirk, 1985 (Volume I, Books 1–4); G.S. Kirk, 1990 (Volume II, Books 5–8); N.J. Richardson, 1993 (Volume VI, Books 21–24)) and/or M.M. Willcock, The Iliad of Homer (Volume 1: Books I–XII, Basingstoke 1978; Volume 2: Books XIII–XIV, Basingstoke 1984).

 

C2 DIONYSUS ON STAGE

DR R. LAEMMLE (8L: Michaelmas)

This course is based around two of the greatest and most famous Athenian plays from the end of the fifth century, Euripides’ Bacchae and Aristophanes’ Frogs (both 405 bc); in both of these plays the god of drama himself, Dionysos, is a central figure, and both reflect, in their own distinctive ways, on the nature of theatre. Not only will this course offer students a chance to study these plays in detail, but questions such as ‘What is Dionysiac about Greek drama?’, and ‘Why does Dionysos get so much stage-time towards the end of the Peloponnesian War?’ will be central to the course.

The B texts are carefully chosen to support the two A texts. Cyclops and Ichneutai, our two major pieces of evidence for satyr-drama, will introduce students to the third and most overtly Dionysiac of the dramatic genres, one defined by its chorus of Dionysos’ satyrs; as the worship of Dionysos is at the heart of the Bacchae, satyr-play, which represents the doings of Dionysos’ satyric followers, is the most obvious comparandum. Cyclops (prob. 408 bc) and Bacchae in particular, which were very likely produced very close in time to each other (and thus to Frogs), share very many Dionysiac themes and are mutually illuminating.

The choice of Persians and Helen invites the students to think about plays which do not feature Dionysos or figures closely associated with him among its personae, but which will help them see what might lie behind the contest of Aeschylus and Euripides in Frogs and understand why Dionysos might initially have been so taken with Euripides. The contrast between our earliest Attic tragedy, one easily represented as martial, patriotic and belonging to the old days (and one explicitly cited in the Frogs) and a very ‘modern’ and ‘late’ escape melodrama, full of typical Euripidean themes such as that of deceptive appearances – and a play of which we know Aristophanes took great notice –, sets out the issues at the core of Frogs in very strong and clear colours. The course will use this opportunity to consider both the history of tragedy in the fifth century and the story which the Athenians themselves told about that history, a story which has much to do with Dionysos, and the music and dance in his honour.

List A

• Non-IG: Euripides, Bacchae 1-87, 170-369, 434-518, 660-861, 912-91, 1043-1376; Aristophanes, Frogs 1-335, 686-813, 1006-1413, 1466-1533 (with the rest of the plays in English)
• IG: Euripides, Bacchae 1-87, 170-369, 660-861, 912-991; Aristophanes, Frogs 1-335, 686-813, 1466-1533 (with the rest of the plays in English) 

List of texts B (for ALL candidates)

Aeschylus Persians; Euripides, Cyclops, Helen; Sophocles, Ichneutai.  

List A editions & commentaries (asterisks indicate the prescribed editions for use in examination)

• Diggle, J. (ed.) (1994) Euripidis fabulae, Tomus III (Oxford)* 
• Dodds, E.R. (1960) Euripides, Bacchae (Oxford) 
• Seaford, R.A.S. (1996) Euripides, Bacchae, with an Introduction, translation and commentary (Warminster) [Aris&Phillips] 
• Wilson, N.G. (2007) Aristophanis fabulae, Tomus II (Oxford)* 
• Dover, K. (1993) Aristophanes, Frogs, edited with introduction and commentary (Oxford) [abriged ed.: Oxford 1997] 
• Sommerstein, A.H. (1996) Aristophanes, Frogs, edited with translation and notes(Warminster) [Aris&Phillips] 
• Stanford, W.B. (1958) Aristophanes, Frogs, edited with introduction, revised text, commentary, and index. (London) 

List B editions & commentaries 

• Burian, P. (2007) Euripides, Helen (Oxford) [Aris&Phillips] 
• Hall, E. (1996) Aeschylus, Persians (Warminster) [Aris&Phillips] 
• Hunter, R. and Laemmle, R. (2020) Euripides, Cyclops (Cambridge) 
• Kovacs, D. (2002) Euripides, Helen, Phoenician Women, Orestes (Cambridge, MA/London) [Loeb] 
• Lloyd-Jones, H. (2003) Sophocles, Fragments (Cambridge, MA/London) [The Searchers (= Ichneutai) on pp. 140–77][Loeb] 
• Seaford, R.A.S. (1984) Euripides Cyclops (Oxford) 
• O’Sullivan, P. and Collard, C. (2013) Euripides, Cyclops and Major Fragments of Greek Satyric Drama (Oxford) [Aris&Phillips] 
• Sommerstein, A.H. (2008) Aeschylus, Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound (Cambridge, MA/London) [Loeb]

 

C3 THE WORLD OF THE GREEK NOVEL

PROF S. GOLDHILL / DR D. HANIGAN (8L: Lent)

This paper introduces students to the Greek Novel, a new literary genre that emerged in the period of the Roman Empire. These texts — by turn hyper-sophisticated, raunchy, psychologically insightful, rhetorically overwrought and socially subversive — reached a wide readership in antiquity, and give an unparalleled insight into the mindset of Greek-speakers under the Roman Empire. When they were popularised in the 16^th century, ancient novels were hugely influential on modern literature, from Shakespeare and Sydney to the modern novel itself. They are thus, in one sense, the ancestors of the modern novel, and many of the techniques used to analyse modern literature can be brought to bear upon them.

List A

• Non-IG: Achilles Tatius Books 1–2; pseudo-Lucian, The Ass
• IG: Achilles Tatius Book 1; pseudo-Lucian, The Ass

List B (for ALL candidates)

Achilles Tatius Books 3–8; Joseph and Aseneth; The Life of Thecla

Introductory readings

• Cueva, E. and Byrne, S. eds. 2014. A Companion to the Ancient Novel. Oxford.
• Schmeling, G. ed. 1996. The Novel in the Ancient World. Leiden.
• Whitmarsh, T. ed. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel. Cambridge.
• Whitmarsh, T. 2018. Dirty Love: The Genealogy of the Ancient Greek Novel. New York.

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries

Achilles Tatius

• Text and commentary: Whitmarsh, T. ed. 2020. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon Books I–II. Cambridge.
• Translation: Either Whitmarsh, T. 2001. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon. Oxford. Or Winkler, J. J. in Reardon, B. P. ed. 1989. Collected Ancient Greek Novels. Berkeley.

The Ass

• Text: Macleod, M. D. 1974. Luciani Opera. Vol. II. Oxford: 276–309.
• Text and commentary: Nimis, S. and Hayes, E. eds. 2012. Lucian’s The Ass: An Intermediate Greek Reader. Greek Text with Running Vocabulary and Commentary. Oxford. http://www.faenumpublishing.com/lucians-the-ass.html (click ‘free download’)

Joseph and Aseneth

• Humphrey, E. M. 2000. Joseph and Aseneth. Sheffield.

Paul and Thecla

• Wilson, R. M. 1998. ‘Anonymous, The Acts of Paul and Thecla’. In Hansen, W. ed. Anthology of Greek Popular Literature. Bloomington.

 

C4  GREEK LYRIC

PROF. R. GAGNE (8L: Lent)

This option aims to introduce students to a wide-ranging selection of archaic and early classical Greek lyric poetry (7th-5th BC), focusing in particular on its various genres and contexts of performance, notably the symposium. The course will offer close readings of some of the most fascinating and diverse texts to reach us from classical antiquity: Sappho’s poems of desire, Alcaeus’ songs of exile, the richly textured and often shockingly aggressive blame of iambic poetry, the conflicting visions of wisdom, ethics and society given shape by elegiac poets, Anacreon’s odes on eros and wine, Pindar and Bacchylides’ intricate poems of praise and victory, and many other striking and distinctive poetic voices.

Texts will be analysed in detail and interpreted within their various literary and historical contexts, with particular attention paid to diction, style, and overarching themes. We will also discuss the evolution of lyric genres, their hugely influential afterlife, and the often highly complex relationships which obtain between texts and performance contexts.

List A

• Non-IG: Alcaeus, Sappho, Ibycus, Anacreon, Simonides (as in Budelmann); Sappho’s Brothers Poem (as in handout on Moodle); Archilochus, Hipponax, Solon, Theognis, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Xenophanes, Callinus (as in Allan); Bacchylides 5 (as in Cairns); Pindar Olympian 1 (as in Race).
• IG: Sappho, Anacreon (as in Budelmann); Sappho’s ‘Brothers Poem’ (as in handout on Moodle); Archilochus, Hipponax, Solon, Theognis, Tyrtaeus (as in Allan); Bacchylides 5 (as in Cairns).

List B (for ALL candidates)

Alcman 1; Sappho 94, 96, 98a-b; Alcaeus 38a, 69, 70, 298; Simonides Plataea Elegy; Bacchylides 1, 3, 17; Pindar Olympian 2; Pythian 1; Isthmian 2; Paean 6.

 

Introductory readings

• Budelmann, Felix (ed.) (2009) The Cambridge Companion to Greek Lyric (Cambridge)

• Colvin, Stephen (2007) A Historical Greek Reader (Oxford)

• Gerber, Douglas E. (ed.) (1997) A Companion to the Greek Lyric Poets (Leiden)

• Hutchinson, Gregory (2001) Greek Lyric Poetry (Oxford)

• Swift, L. (ed.) (2022) A Companion to Greek Lyric (Chichester and Oxford).

 

Prescribed editions and recommended commentaries

• Budelmann, Felix (2018) Greek Lyric: A Selection (Cambridge)

• Allan, William (2019) Greek Elegy and Iambus: A Selection (Cambridge)

• Cairns, Douglas (2010) Bacchylides: Five Epinician Odes (Cambridge)

• Race, William H. (1997) Pindar, Olympian Odes; Pythian Odes (Loeb Classical Library) (Cambridge, MA)

 

Guides to Texts, Translations and Commentaries:

• For Alcaeus, Sappho, Ibycus, Anacreon, and Simonides, read all the texts in Budelmann.

• For Sappho’s recently recovered Brothers Poem, use the specially produced text and commentary posted to Moodle.

• For Archilochus, Hipponax, Solon, Theognis, Tyrtaeus, Mimnermus, Xenophanes, Callinus, read all the texts in Allan.

• For Bacchylides 5, use the text of Cairns. In studying this poem, make good use of the commentary in D.L. Cairns (2010) Five Epinician Odes of Bacchylides (Cambridge) and H. Maehler (2004) Bacchylides, A Selection (Cambridge).

• For Pindar’s Olympian 1, use the text of Race’s Loeb. There are many copies of this in Cambridge and available online. In studying this poem, make good use of D. Gerber (1982) Pindar’s Olympian One: a commentary (Toronto) and S. Instone (1996) Pindar, Selected Odes: Olympian One, Pythian Nine, Nemeans Two & Three, Isthmian One (Warminster).

 

Courses for ALL candidates

If you did not manage to attend this course in your Prelim. or Part IA year, now is the time to go to:

INTRODUCTION TO LITERARY THEORY

PROF T. WHITMARSH (6 L: Easter)

All scholarly reading and writing about literature is ‘theoretical’, in the sense that it rests upon ideas about what literature is, what it is for, and what it means. The aims of this course are three-fold: firstly, to allow students to understand better what are the hidden assumptions that underpin the way that they have been brought up to read; secondly, to help them understand the range of alternative options available; and thirdly, to give them practical tips to allow them to expand their literary-critical toolkits. The lectures will be accessible — no prior knowledge is assumed — and will benefit any student with any interest in reading ancient literature either as literature or in historical terms. The lectures will cover the more established areas of theory, including narratology, deconstruction and feminism, and also newer fields like ecocriticism and new materialism. A good place for the curious to start is Jonathan Culler’s accessible Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2011).

 

GREEK AND LATIN METRE

DR M WARD (4 L: Lent)

A detailed survey of all the main Greek and Latin metres. After the principles of prosody and scansion have been set out, these metres will be examined roughly in ascending order of difficulty or unfamiliarity. Lecture 1 will focus on the basic principles; Lecture 2 on hexameters and pentameters; Lecture 3 on iambics; Lecture 4 on lyric / strophic metres.

Students may find it useful to read the following introduction: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/05/long-short-latin-poetry/.

 

Useful reference works:

A.M. Dale, The Lyric Metres of Greek Drama (Cambridge, 1968, 2nd edition)

J.W. Halporn, M. Ostwald, and T.G. Rosenmeyer, The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry (1980, Norman OK)

P. Maas, Greek Metre (Oxford, 1962, transl. H. Lloyd-Jones)

D.S. Raven, Greek Metre: An Introduction (London, 1962)

D.S. Raven, Latin Metre: An Introduction (London, 1965)

M.L. West, Greek Metre (Oxford, 1982)

M.L. West, Introduction to Greek Metre (Oxford, 1987) is a useful reference work.