Humane Letters I (9th Grade) – Gods and Kings: Ancient Greece to the Fall of Rome

Freshmen consider “Man,” his nature, his capacity for good and for evil, and his destiny. Beyond the study of Western Civilization from its Greek and Hebrew origins through the fall of Rome and rise of Christianity, students develop academic aptitudes foundational to the Sequence, including dignified and productive participation in the Socratic seminar, composition of analytical essays that draw on multiple sources of authority, and close reading of literary texts.

Nota bene: Incoming Freshmen will be expected to already possess…

-A mastery of English grammar

-An aptitude for cogent prose

-Ability to propound a sound thesis on the basis of evidence in both written and oral form

-A ready knowledge of the major contours and personalities of world history, as well as their chronology and general relation to one another

-A thorough grounding in physical, political, and historical geography

-A working knowledge of the more famous Greek myths

Major Texts

Summer Reading:Letters from a Stoic (Seneca)

Semester I:Works and Days and The Theogony (Hesiod)

The Iliad (Homer)

The Histories (Herodotus)

Greek Lives (Plutarch)

Semester II:Meno and Euthyphro (Plato)

Nichomachean Ethics and Poetics (Aristotle)

Oedipus the King (Sophocles)

History of Rome, Books I-V (Livy)

Selected Addresses and Letters of Cicero

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Gibbon)

The City of God (St. Augustine)

The Confessions (St. Augustine)

i. Summer Reading:Letters from a Stoic (Seneca)

First Days – Discuss summer reading and course expectations and themes

-Minor Composition Due the first day of class

-Discussion of the course’s paradigm: the life of the philosopher.

Quarter I – The Greek “Mythos”

Week 1 – Ancient Greece; another time, another place

-Read and Discuss Works and Days and The Theogony

-Minor Composition due Monday

Week 2 – The “Telemachy” and the aftermath of Troy

-Odyssey Books 1-4

-Minor Composition on the Function of the Telemachy

Week 3 – Journey toward Hades

-Odyssey Books 5-12

-Conventions of the Heroic Epic

-Minor Composition on a theme considered to midway point of Odyssey

Week 4 – “Testing” and the grounds for Odysseus’ renown

-Odyssey Books 13-20

-Minor Composition on Odysseus’ character

Week 5 – The return of the king

-Odyssey Books 21-24

-TEST on The Odyssey

Week 6 – The Writing Process

-Considerations for literary analysis

-Outline, Rough Draft, Peer Editing

-Major Composition on The Odyssey Due Monday

Week 7 – Introduction to Herodotus

-How to consider a “Big Book”

-Introduction to Historical causality

-Guided readings of early pages of The Histories

-Minor Composition on the cause or causes of the Persian Wars Due Friday

Weeks 8 & 9 – The Historical Process and Greek Exceptionalism

-Why were the Greeks ultimately victorious in the Persian Wars of the early fifth century B.C.?

-Students work in “research groups” of their choosing—or individually—but turn in their own paper. Mini-lectures on writing, historical process, Greek culture and personalities, but the majority of class time is given over to student-directed researches.

-Major Composition Due the last Friday of the Quarter

Quarter II – The Classical Age and the Greek “Ethos”

Week 1 – Great Men of Greece part I

-Introduction to the Classical Age

-Readings from Plutarch on Athenian lives

-Minor Composition on the Athenian character

Week 2 – Great Men of Greece part II

-Consider the significance of regionalism ancient and modern

-Readings from Plutarch on Spartan lives

-Minor Composition on the Spartan character

Week 3 – The Greek Ethos

-Could Odysseus be considered the archetypal Athenian or Spartan? If neither, in what sense is he Greek?

-Minor Composition Due Friday

Week 4 – Plato and the Socratic Dialogue

-Read and Discuss the Meno

-Introduce Précis and produce a Précis of the Meno

Week 5 – The Euthyphro

-Read and Discuss the Euthyphro

-Produce a Précis of the Euthyphro

Week 6 – The Nicomachean Ethics

-Read, Discuss, and Précis Aristotle on Virtue

Week 7 – The Nicomachean Ethics

-Read, Discuss, and Précis Aristotle on Courage, Temperance, and Justice

Weeks 8 & 9 – The Aristotelean Dialogue

-Draft, rehearse, and perform the Aristotelian Dialogue Project

SEMESTER Midterm Exam – The Ethos or Spirit of Ancient Greece ESSAY

Quarter III – Tragedy and the Destiny of Greek Civilization

Week 1 – The Greek Twilight

-Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War

-Alexander and Hellenization

Week 2 – Introduction to Greek Tragedy

-Daily seminar through Oedipus the King

-Special consideration of possibilities and limitations of the form (e.g. What is the function of the chorus? Is Oedipus’ persistent “blindness” credible in light of mounting evidence? Is Oedipus victim or perpetrator? Is Oedipus a fantastical or relatable character? Does the significant role of “prophecy” preclude any modern significance for the play?)

Week 3 – Aristotle’s Poetics

-Consider Oedipus the King through the rubric of Aristotle’s Poetics

-Minor Composition – To what question is Oedipus the King an answer? (Possible short essays on one ethical question and one literary question of the student’s choosing)

Weeks 4, 5, 6, & 7 – The Oresteia

-Major Composition

Weeks 8 & 9 – Hamartia and the Downfall of the Greeks

-Major Composition - What was the “fatal flaw” of Greek Civilization?

Quarter IV – The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the Advent of Christendom

Week 1 – The Grammar of Roman History

-Livy and the Founding Myth

-Excerpts from The Aeneid

-TEST

Week 2 – Cicero and Classical Republicanism

-Cicero selected Letters and Speeches; Nature of the Gods excerpts

-Minor Composition

Week 3 – The Christian Movement

-Readings from the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, and Epistles of St. Paul

-TEST

Weeks 4 & 5 – Theories of the Decline and Fall

-Tacitus

-Gibbon

-St. Augustine

-Major Composition – Comparative Essay

Weeks 6-9 – Augustine’s Confessions and work toward research, drafting, and presentation of Freshman Thesis

END OF COURSE Final Exam – Freshman Thesis, to be submitted as partial fulfilment of year-end Final Exam

-Thesis Question:Should the advent of Christianity in late antiquity be understood as a development, a fulfillment, or a repudiation of the classical world?

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