Teaching Ancient Biography
by Dr. Margaret Cotter-Lynch, Southeastern Oklahoma State University
Original text © 2005. Margaret Cotter-Lynch.
Course Information
Description and Rationale:
What makes a hero? What makes a villain? The conflict between these two types is the structuring principle of countless stories, from the most ancient poems to contemporary politics. In this course, we will examine the ways in which complex individuals, in complex situations, are represented and explained through the archetypical conflict between the hero and the villain. In order to explore the long history surrounding conceptions of heroism and villainy, we will concentrate upon the literature of ancient Greece and Rome, which provides the foundation of many contemporary assumptions about these two categories. We will read works of poetry, drama, and prose, fiction and history (and a mix between the two); we will talk about the ways in which different authors represent different characters to give readers different impressions of who is a hero, who is a villain, and why.
Course Aims and Objectives:
The primary objective of this course is to teach you the skills of a critical reader and thinker. These skills are integral to not only the study of the humanities, but to many facets of life. The emphasis within this course will be upon the representation of character, that is to say how stories are told in order to give a particular impression of a particular individual, whether fictional or real. By the end of this course, you should be able to differentiate factual material from value judgments; you should be able to identify aspects of a text which reveal the value system according to which characters within that text are judged; you should be able to articulate the differences between your own and others’ opinions, and the bases of those differences.
|
|
|
