CLAS 201 Study Guide - Fall 2018, Comprehensive Midterm Notes - Ancient Greece, Order Of Australia, Zeus
12 Oct 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
CLAS 201
MIDTERM EXAM
STUDY GUIDE
Fall 2018
Homer
Who was homer?
He was a blind song singer from the island of Chios
○
Poet of the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Homeric Hymns
○
-
People try to find the places in the stories
-
He describes a broad time scale
-
Talks about remains of bronze age palaces (Greece 12 - 16 century
BCE)
-
Hear about the appearance of iron as a medal during Bronze age,
but wasn't heard about during this time period
-
Heinrich Schleimann, 1876
Realized that what he found and the city were far more complex
to pin down to one historical moment or event
-
Homer and the Epic
Philology: study of languages within its ancient context
-
Comparative literature: comparative narrative structure
-
Performance practice: use to figure it out how different things
work
-
Orality and Performance
Part of an oral tradition describing a Panhellenic world
-
Heroes from all over the world, and places and other traditional
myths being woven in
-
Hardly any reference to Athens
-
Hallmarks of orality
Meter: poetry, but it is not just poetry (Greek meter isn't
rythmic, its about length)
Meter - Daetylic Hexameter
§
Long - short - short notes
§
○
Repetition: clear sets of metrics, something happening over
○
-
Lecture 1 - Homer and the Greeks
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
12:38 PM
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Repetition: clear sets of metrics, something happening over
and over again so you are familiar with it
Lots of repeated epithets to reinforce the idea of
something
§
Character traits are reinforced (things that describe
what people have done, ie. Achilles the City Sacker)
§
○
Formulaic Phrases:
Sequence of set phrases that fit certain contexts (Ie. In
game of thrones "winter is coming")
§
○
Type scenes are indicitive of orality
Thinking about the arming scene
§
Every time someone goes to war, they put on their
armor and there is a certain order about how
everything is put on - start with shin guards
§
○
Recaps: in book one there is the entire recap of book one
First conflict that sends the whole thing in motion
(Achilles and Agamemnon set up the Iliad
§
Intervals between recaps can rage between 100 to
200 minutes
§
○
Values: we feel sympathy for other people
○
Poems
Greeks took alphabet from phenetians and inserted vowels
Shows that people are learning to write
○
-
How pervasive and relevant were these tales of the Greek gods
and heroes?
The stuff that we choose to surround ourselves with has a
certain meaning
We don’t choose randomly
§
○
There are similar behaviours throughout the history of our
species
○
-
There is a written text, 6th century, doesn’t freeze in the 6th
century it changes through Athens and the Hellenistic period
Library of Alexandria
○
-
Reputation of Homer was slowly built up
Lacked opportunities (artists) to hear the recitations of the
Iliad and the Odyssey
○
There were other stories that they could hear and they
chose to hear them instead
○
Artists and clients were stupid, or they didn’t care
○
-
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
He was a blind song singer from the island of chios. Poet of the iliad, the odyssey and the homeric hymns. People try to find the places in the stories. Talks about remains of bronze age palaces (greece 12 - 16 century. Hear about the appearance of iron as a medal during bronze age, but wasn"t heard about during this time period. Realized that what he found and the city were far more complex to pin down to one historical moment or event. Philology: study of languages within its ancient context. Performance practice: use to figure it out how different things work. Part of an oral tradition describing a panhellenic world. Heroes from all over the world, and places and other traditional myths being woven in. Meter: poetry, but it is not just poetry (greek meter isn"t rythmic, its about length) Repetition: clear sets of metrics, something happening over.
