Homer

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Beautiful Bodies or Beautiful Minds: Disability Studies in Homer, with Joel Christensen

We were pleased to welcome Joel Christensen of Brandeis University, Department of Classics for an Open House discussion about Disability in Homer. It took place on Thursday, April 19, at 11:00 a.m. EDT, and was recorded. In preparation, you might like to read these focus passages (PDF handout): Beautiful Bodies or Beautiful Minds: Disability Studies in Homer—Readings Watch the recording on the screen below or on our YouTube channel For… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | April 2018: The Tears of Achilles

In an epic text, how were poets able to represent emotion? How can we understand today their way of speaking? Did Achilles “copy” the behavior of warriors from those distant times? Or might it be the reverse: did the epic influence certain real behaviors? Our Book Club selection for April is taken from Hélène Monsacré: The Tears of Achilles, available online at CHS. This book, originally published in French as… Read more

Ancient Greek language

Practicing Homeric epic meter: dactylic hexameter, with Leonard Muellner

In this video, Leonard Muellner demonstrates and provides help for those learning dactylic hexameter—the meter of Homeric epic. You can hear the rhythm and, by pausing the video, you can practice by repeating what you have heard, or by reading ahead for yourself as demonstrated in the video. The text shown on screen, which includes some lines marked up in a visual way, is also available as a PDF handout… Read more

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Thucydides on Early Greece and the Trojan War, with Jeffrey Rusten

We were pleased to welcome again Jeffrey Rusten of Cornell University, Department of Classics, for an Open House discussion on Thucydides on Early Greece and the Trojan War. For the Open House Jeffrey Rusten invites us to think about and discuss the following questions: How does Thucydides approach the Iliad and think it has historical value? Is his analysis flawed in any way? Is it anachronistic? Is it in any… Read more

Ancient Greek language,  Reading Homer

Greek dialects in the language of Homer: Mycenaean, and Arcadian

In this video, Gregory Nagy, Douglas Frame, Leonard Muellner, and Keith Stone have an informal discussion about the role of dialects in the Homeric poetic tradition, introducing the Mycenaean phase, and Homeric forms in Arcadian. They include examples from formulas such as epithets within Homeric poetry, and also refer to the work of Aristotle and Theophrastus. Related topics Greek dialects and the poetic super-language Greek dialects in epic: the cake… Read more