UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES
DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

2011/12
Full Year

Q84AGR
Advanced Greek for MA Students

30 credits
Convener (Autumn):
Prof. A.H. Sommerstein
(alan.sommerstein@nottingham.ac.uk)
Other Teachers: Mrs Janet Moore
(jan_moore@talk21.com)

MODULE BOOKLET
2011/12
CONTENTS

The Scope of this Booklet

p. 2

Aims and Content

p. 2

Objectives

p. 2

Teaching

p. 2

Assessment

p. 3

Bibliography

p. 4

Important Notes
Please note that the information contained in this booklet is provisional. In particular, the
dates and times of classes will be notified to you separately. It is your responsibility to make
sure that you are aware of these, and of any other changes that have to be made, by
regularly checking your email and consulting the noticeboards in the Classics Department,
Humanities Building.
This booklet does not repeat information given in the Department of Classics
Postgraduate Handbook (available online at http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/classics/).
Everything in this booklet , so far as it is relevant to this module, should be deemed to
form part of this booklet, unless explicitly superseded below.

The Scope of this Booklet

This is a full year module split into two equal halves, one in each semester. This
booklet sets out the details of the module for the Autumn semester only, which is
why the totals under Assessment below add up to only 50%. A separate
booklet will be issued for the Spring semester half of the module.
Aims and Content
This module involves detailed study in the original of a verse text: Homer,
Odyssey, books 17-18. The edition we shall be using is by Deborah Steiner
(Cambridge 2010). Systematic attention will be given to the development of your
grasp of the Greek language, including unseen practice, but the focus of the
module will not be merely linguistic: you will be encouraged to consider the set
text from a literary perspective, and to explore its contexts within the epic and
within society.
You will be studying the whole two books (just over 1000 lines) in Greek.
Objectives
On successful completion of this module you will have:
(a) developed your grasp of the ancient Greek language
(b) engaged, in the original Greek, with a major verse author
(c) developed your understanding of ancient Greek epic
(d) further developed your understanding of a variety of approaches to reading
complex texts
(e) further developed your ability to contribute to oral discussion
(f) further developed your writing ability
Teaching
There will be three one-hour classes per week. Two of these classes (the
plenary classes) will be taken by the module convener and will also be
attended by students taking the parallel modules Q83AG1 (Advanced Greek 1),
Q81GT1 (Greek Texts 1), Q82GT3 (Greek Texts 3), and Q83GT5 (Greek Texts
5); the third class will be only for students taking this module or Q83GT5 and will
be taken by Mrs Janet Moore. The times and locations of classes will be
announced before teaching starts via the online University timetable, the Classics
Department noticeboards, and printed timetables issued by the School of History
& Humanities Office.
In general, the plenary classes will concentrate on reading, interpreting,
contextualizing and discussing the set text, and Mrs Moores classes on unseen
translation and (if necessary) grammar review.
All classes are compulsory. If you miss one for a good reason, you must inform
the Module Convener of this reason by e-mail as soon as possible preferably
2

before the class in question copying your email to Mrs Moore if the absence
concerns her class. Persistent absenteeism will be penalised by awarding a
mark of 0% for any remaining assessment on the module (including
exams). If you fail to provide a satisfactory explanation for absences, you will
be asked for one; if it is still not forthcoming, you will be warned that the penalty
will be imposed unless matters improve. This request and warning will be sent to
your University e-mail, which it is your responsibility to check regularly.
Assessment
(a)
(b)
(c)

Coursework essay: 15%

50-minute class test: 15%
Two-hour examination: 20%

(a) The coursework exercise will be an essay on one of two topics to be

announced no later than 25 October 2011. The word limit is 2,000, and the
deadline is 23 November 2011.
Coursework submitted after 12 noon on the due date will incur a 5% lateness
penalty. Coursework submitted after 12 noon on the day after the deadline will
incur a 10% lateness penalty, and so on.
N.B. Coursework must be wholly your own work. You must not quote or
paraphrase the words of other authors without acknowledgement.
Failure to acknowledge your sources may lead to your being suspected
of plagiarism, that is, the academic offence of seeking an unfair
advantage by using other peoples work as though it were your own.
Your coursework coversheet will include a declaration, which your must
sign, stating that the work is your own and that you have acknowledged
all material taken from other sources.
(b) The class test will take place during one of the class hours in the last week of
the Autumn Term (12-16 December). You will have 50 minutes to translate an
unseen passage of Greek hexameters about 20 lines long.
If you do not attend, you will score zero for this part of the assessment, unless
you can produce a doctors note or other official document which proves that you
were unable to sit the test. In other words, you should treat it exactly as you
would a formal University examination.
(c) The exam will take the following format:
One passage (c. 30 lines) for translation (no choice): 25%
One passage (c. 20 lines) for translation and comment (choice from two):
20% translation, 20% commentary
One essay (choice from three): 35%

Bibliography
You must acquire a copy of Steiners edition as soon as possible if you have not
already done so. It contains a valuable introduction and commentary, and a very
extensive bibliography.
Other useful commentaries (all of which are parts of commentaries on the
Odyssey as a whole) are those by W.B. Stanford (vol. 2 of 2, 2nd ed., 1958) and
J.A. Russo (in A. Heubeck et al. A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey, Volume III
[1988] 1-73); also, in a category of its own, I.J.F. de Jong, A Narratological
Commentary on the Odyssey (2001) 407-457 (you will find the insights of the
narratological method very rewarding, but you will need to understand its
terminology; consult carefully the glossary on pp. xi-xix).
There are very many translations of the Odyssey. For purposes of studying the
text, you will be best served by those which try to keep close to the Greek, such
as those by Richmond Lattimore (1965), Walter Shewring (Oxford World's
Classics, 1980), and A.T. Murray & G.E. Dimock (Loeb, 1995). There is a
Companion to the Lattimore translation by P.V. Jones (1988).
Published
translations, properly used, can be a valuable aid to your understanding of the
Greek text, but they must never be allowed to become a substitute for full
lexical and grammatical comprehension of the Greek.
Grammar and metre
As there is no section on the grammar of Homeric Greek in Steiners edition, and
only very brief guides in J. Morwood, Oxford Grammar of Classical Greek (2001)
227-8 and in the JACT course Reading Greek: Grammar and Exercises (2nd ed.,
2007) 362-4, 378-382, the convener will circulate photocopies of Stanford's fairly
comprehensive outline of the distinctive features of Homer's Greek from the
introduction to his edition (vol. 1, pp. li-lxxxvi). The older standard Greek
grammars (e.g. Weir Smyth, Goodwin) deal with the distinctive features of
Homeric Greek piecemeal, as they arise in connection with one or another area of
grammar.
The metre of Homeric verse the dactylic hexameter is explained by Steiner on
pages 37-43 of her edition.

Books about Homer and the Odyssey

(NB: this list is only an initial guide; there is a much fuller listing on pages 220234 of Steiners edition, and you should also be building up your own
bibliography on the subject in the course of your reading and research.)
N. Austin, Archery at the Dark of the Moon (1975)
H.W. Clarke ed. Twentieth Century Interpretations of the Odyssey (1983)
H.W. Clarke, The Art of the Odyssey (2nd ed. 1989)
J.S. Clay, The Wrath of Athena (1989)

B. Clayton, A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homers Odyssey

(2004).
B. Cohen ed. The Distaff Side (1995), esp. the chapters by S.L. Schein ("Female
representations and impersonating the Odyssey") and H.A. Shapiro
("Coming of age in Phaiakia").
G.E. Dimock, The Unity of the Odyssey (1989)
L.E. Doherty, Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences and Narrators in the Odyssey
(1995)
L.E. Doherty ed. Homers Odyssey (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies) (2009)
reprints 16 previously published articles; note especially (though not
exclusively) chapters 4 (I.J.F. de Jong, Between word and deed: hidden
thoughts in the Odyssey), 6 (E. Cook, Active and passive heroics in the
Odyssey), 7 (P. Walcot, Odysseus and the art of lying), and 11 (S.
Murnaghan, Penelopes agnoia).
M.W. Edwards, "The narrator and the audience; Composition by theme; Similes;
Style", in The Iliad: A Commentary, Vol. V (1991) 1-60.
J.H. Finley, Homer's Odyssey (1978)
J.M. Foley ed. A Companion to Ancient Epic (2005), esp. chapters 8 (H.P. Foley,
"Women in ancient epic) and 22 (L.M. Slatkin, "Homer's Odyssey")
R.L. Fowler ed. The Cambridge Companion to Homer (2004); almost every
chapter in Parts 1-4 is relevant.
J. Griffin, Homer: The Odyssey (2nd ed., 2004)
R. Heitman, Taking Her Seriously (2005)
M.B. Katz, Penelopes Renown (1991)
I. McAuslan and P. Walcot ed. Homer (1998)
E. Minchin, Homeric Voices (2007)
I. Morris and B.B. Powell ed. A New Companion to Homer (1997); of mixed
quality, but a good chapter by S.V. Tracy on the Odyssey.
S. Murnaghan, Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey (1987)
S.D. Olson, Blood and Iron: Stories and Storytelling in Homer's Odyssey (1995)
B.B. Powell, Homer (2004)
R.B. Rutherford, Homer (1996). A review of recent scholarship.
S. Sad and R. Webb, Homer and the Odyssey (2011)
S.L. Schein ed., Reading the Odyssey: Selected Interpretive Essays (1996).
R.S. Scodel, Listening to Homer (2002)