Continuing Education Programs

The Iliad is the oldest work in the Western canon, a daunting poem both in length and subject: glorious warriors; death, dying, and more death; valor and defeat; all overseen by a colorful array of vivid gods involved in the whole scene as well as looking on. While relatively few people these days read the whole poem, most might at least have heard that it has “something to do with the Trojan War.” Homer asks the Muse to tell the story of one man’s anger and its terrible consequences. But what really is Achilles so angry about? The answer may not be as obvious as he–and we–first think it is. The Iliad is longer than the Odyssey, and most people find it more alien in the way its tells its story, harder to relate to as modern people. All of us will have the same unabridged text, but we’ll read selections of the poem aloud during class, in the manner the original was meant to be experienced. While the course does not require students to have the read the Iliad in advance, it might certainly be helpful to pick up a translation and try to know something of the poem before attending the course. Notes, hand-outs, and plot summaries will be provided for all students. We’ll use the Robert Fagles translation for this course.