30644 - Ancient Greek Civilization and Literature (LM)

Learning outcomes

My course is articulated into two modules. One is a linguistic module reserved to students who have never studied Greek. It enables the acquisition of grammatical, syntactic and lexical notions sufficient to be able to read and translate short and easy Greek texts. The other module concerns literature. It highlights the main lines of the Hellenic civilization with a special interest in literary aspects. Anthropological considerations constitute the starting point for literary investigation.

Course contents

The linguistic module concerns the study of grammatical and syntactic notions which permit to read short texts and a number of sentences by ancient authors. The main linguistic notions are: alphabet, phonetic elements, the article, attributive and predicative position, main prepositions, nouns of the I and II declension, adjectives of the I class, verbal diathesis, verbal tenses (present and imperfect), infinitival constructions, declarative sentences, objective and subjective negation, lexical considerations.
The literary module concerns the main lines of the Hellenic civilization: periods of the Greek history, geographical fragmentariness of the Greek world and unitary characters, texts transmission, Homer, tragedy and comedy, general features of Hellenism. The literary module includes also a monographic course : “The figures of a myth: Ulysses”.

Readings/Bibliography

The reference book for the history of literature is L.E. Rossi, Letteratura greca, Le Monnier, Firenze 1995. Different handbooks can be used but must be chosen in agreement with the teacher. Reference texts for the monographic course are: W.B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme, Oxford 1968 (II ed.); P. Boitani, L'ombra di Ulisse, Il Mulino, Bologna 1992; S. Nicosia (a cura di), Ulisse nel tempo. La metafora infinita, Marsilio, Venezia 2003.
More specific bibliographical information will be given during the lessons.

Teaching methods

Frontal lectures. Seminars are also possible.

Assessment methods

Oral examinations. Individual researches can be evaluated. Who cannot attend the lessons is invited to contact the teacher

Teaching tools

Copies of Greek texts and sentences and copies of grammatical and syntactic rules will be given to the students.

Office hours

See the website of Oscar Fuà