| Description |
This is a course about the complex inspiration African-American writers took from texts of classical antiquity, and the challenges they faced to make them their own. We will read and put into dialogue ancient Greek and Roman works and modern responses, ranging from the 18th to the 21st century. Themes include Odyssean wandering, Iliadic rage, satire, patronage, rhetoric, literacy, liberation, pedagogy, praise poetry, myth, and the canon. The aim is to gain new appreciation of both sets of texts, and to articulate what happens at their points of intersection in modern American culture. |