Course overview
Classical Reception is the study of how the cultures, in this case the literature, of the classical Greek and Roman worlds has been received and transformed by authors of subsequent generations. This course investigates the ways that selected extracts from old texts - Homers Iliad and Odyssey, Virgils Aeneid, and Ovids Metamorphoses have been made new by authors such as Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Margaret Atwood, and David Malouf. In exploring these transactions with the classical past, students will engage with appropriations, reconceptualisations, and recontextualisations which demonstrate that classical texts are not static or fixed in time but have shaped, and continue to shape, the history of ideas in the modern world.
Course learning outcomes
- Read and understand extracts from classical literary texts and subsequent literary receptions of them
- Recognise and explain key terms in the practice of classical receptions, including aspects of contemporary literary theory
- Investigate the interdisciplinarity of classical receptions
- Analyse cultural difference and historical change in the comparison of literary texts
- Present sustained and persuasive written arguments based on research that demonstrate an understanding of the problematic nature of texts, such as the contruction of literary canons and the concept of authorship
- Contribute to group-based activities and work as a member of a team in the preparation and delivery of a seminar presentation
- Generate questions and activities to enable the understanding and interrogation of literary texts, and the relationship between them
- Use technologies relevant to the university's learning environment
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