Homer’s Epics: The Splendor of Reality

C.S. Lewis called Homer’s poetry “the splendor of reality,” but students today often struggle to see past the blood- and glory-lust of Homer’s pagan heroes. This course takes a deep dive into the epics within their ancient context. It covers enduring topics such as the beauty of human fellowship, Man’s relation to the divine, the fear of death, and the yearning for glory. While exploring key themes like tragedy in the Iliad and Christian typology in the Odyssey, the course also examines stylistic and narrative parallels between Homer and the biblical Old Testament. The course is unique because it offers regular glimpses of Greek words and phrases behind the translation, many of which shaped our cultural tradition and still echo in modern English. Students will emerge with a deeper appreciation for Homer’s towering craft, a grasp of the elements of Western literature, and several crucial insights about the Bible’s literature and cosmos.

Course Objectives:

1. Define the elements of Western literature derived from Aristotle’s Poetics
2. Analyze literary texts in terms of the elements of literature
3. Rehearse the basic narratives of Homer's epics in terms of their plots characters, themes, and contexts
4. Describe Homer’s influences on the rest of the Western tradition.
5. Evaluate ideas central to the Archaic Greek (Homeric) worldview from a Christian perspective
6. Defend in a nuanced way, and from a Christian perspective, the literary and philosophical greatness of Homer
7. Explain several parallels between Homeric and Old Testament narrative style, and between Homer’s cosmos and that of the Old Testament

Texts:

• Lattimore, trans., The Iliad of Homer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. ISBN: 0226470490
• Lattimore, trans. The Odyssey of Homer. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2007. ISBN: 006124418X

NOTE:

This class will begin Spring 2021. Please contact the teacher in order to be added to a list to know when the course is scheduled to start and what day(s) and time(s) the classes will be.