En 194 - There and Back Again: Ancient and Early Modern Epic Storytelling

This course will examine how ancient and early modern epic poems variously imagine the processes of identity formation, as well as how narrative construction and figurative language shape the interpretive possibilities of these epics. With memorable protagonists to guide us-from Odysseus and Aeneas to Dante, Britomart, and Adam and Eve-we will analyze how the epic tradition vividly investigates rhetoric and identity, insists on the social and cultural power of storytelling, and asks us to consider how we come to know ourselves and the communities to which we belong. Students will develop skills in reading, analyzing, and writing arguments about these complex and historically significant poems. Texts will include Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid in full, and selections from Dante's Inferno, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Milton's Paradise Lost.