6AACTL06 Values & Subversion in Roman Literature & Society
Credit value: 30
Module convenor/tutor: Dr Ismene Lada-Richards
Teaching pattern: 20 x 2-hour seminars (weekly)
Availability: Please see module list
Assessment: 1 x 3-hour examination (100%)
In this module we will be taking a broad look at the ideals of Roman culture and society and the various ways in which these ideals were challenged or subverted. A wide range of primary texts, mainly but not exclusively literary. will be read. The purpose of the module is to understand the tensions and conflicts that underlay the Roman self-image and to put some major literary works in the context of the tensions that characterized the Roman value system.
Overview of Topics and Schedule
First Semester
Versions of Rome, Ancient and Modern
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Week 1. Virtue and Vice: Ancient Rome in the Modern Imagination
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Week 2. Ancient Rome on Ancient Rome
Figures of Virtue and Vice
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Week 3. Virtus
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Week 4. Gladiators
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Week 5. Orators and Actors; Greeks and Romans
Authority and Power
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Week 6. Patrons and Fathers.
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Week 7. Good emperor/Bad emperor. Suetonius on Augustus and Nero.
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Week 8. Heroic Monsters. Seneca’s Thyestes.
Slaves, Father and Sons
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Week 9. Slaves.
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Week 10. Slaves, Comedy and Saturnalia. Plautus’ The Haunted House (Mostellaria)
Second Semester
Love, Sex and Gender
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Week 11. Marriage, love and Law.
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Week 12. Love and Poetry.
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Week 13. Manliness and Effeminacy.
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Week 14. Female Virtue and Vice.
Religion
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Week 15. Religion and State.
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Week 16. Not so Roman Religion.
Culture
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Week 17. Rhetoric, education and humanitas
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Week 18. Not so lofty literature: Petronius’ Satyricon
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Week 19. Satyricon.
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Week 20. Conclusion.
Primary/introductory readings:
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P. Easterling, “Form and Performance” and “From Repertoire to Canon”, in P. E. Easterling (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1997), 151-77 and 211-27.
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S. Goldhill and R. Osborne (eds), Performance Culture and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge 1999): look at the Chapters by Oliver Taplin, Edith Hall, Pat Easterling and Jon Hesk.
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M. S. Silk (ed), Tragedy and the Tragic: Greek Theatre and Beyond (Oxford 1996): look at the contributions of C. Segal, P.Easterling, I. Lada-Richards
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E Hall, The Theatrical Cast of Athens: Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society (Oxford 2006), Read “Introduction” and Ch. 1.
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E. Hall, “Greek Tragedy 430-380 BC”, in R.Osborne (ed), Debating the Athenian Cultural Revolution (Cambridge 2009) 264-328
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E. Hall and S. Harrop (eds), Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice (London 2010): have a look at the chapters by E. Hall and E. Fischer-Lichte
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M. McDonald and M. J. Walton (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre (Cambridge 2007): look at the contributions of M. Griffith, R. Martin, D. Wiles, and H. Denard.
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C. Segal, “Spectator and Listener”, in J.P.Vernant (ed), The Greeks (Chicago and London 1995), 184-217.
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I. Lada-Richards, “Greek Tragedy and Western Perceptions of Actors and Acting”, in J. Gregory (ed), The Blackwell Companion to Greek Tragedy (Oxford 2005) 459-71