Resources
Goals for the semester
Workload and grading
Schedule of exams and assignments
General policies
Assignments by class
Selected bibliography

Required texts and suggested translations:
Aeschylus, Persians and Seven Against Thebes, in Aeschylus II, ed. David Grene ($9)
Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Oedipus at Colonus, in Theban Plays, trans. Peter Meineck.
Seekers (Ichneutae), translation A. Mahoney after R. J. Walker, in Perseus
Euripides, Suppliant Women, Phoenician Women, and Ion, translated by Robin Waterfield ($12)
Bacchae, trans. Paul Woodruff ($10)
Cyclops, in Euripides II, ed. David Grene ($9)
Fragments of lost plays on the Theban story, to be given out in class
Aristotle, Poetics, translated by Malcolm Heath ($11)
Ian Storey and Arlene Allan, A Guide to Ancient Greek Drama ($40)

The suggested translations, except for Ichneutae, are available in the University Bookstore. Additional translations of all these works are available in the Perseus Digital Library (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu), and translations are also available in the Tisch Library. You may use any translation of these texts, into English or into any other language you can read fluently.

Other resources:
Course web page, http://www.stoa.org/~mahoney/teaching/cl55_s08.html
Perseus Project, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu

Goals for the semester:
In fifth-century Athens, tragedy was popular entertainment, religious ritual, and an activity of the citizen community. A Greek tragedy was not necessarily tragic in the modern sense, nor did it necessarily involve a tragic hero coming to grief because of a fatal flaw. In this course we will examine fifth-century Attic tragedy as it actually was, without the preconceptions many readers have taken from later theorists. We will also consider how the tragedies were staged and how they fit the context of the religious and civic festival in which they were performed. Readings will focus on the story of Thebes. All readings are in English translation; knowledge of Ancient Greek is neither required nor assumed, though students who can will be encouraged to read as much as possible in the original language. No pre-requisites; counts for arts distribution.

The readings are primary texts, in English translation. Knowledge of Ancient Greek is neither required nor assumed, but students who have completed Greek 2 or equivalent are encouraged to read selected plays in their original language. Advanced undergraduates who have completed Greek 7 may take the course as Greek 155.

Students will use the resources of the Perseus Digital Library to supplement the readings.

Students in the CLS 155 section will also write a major scholarly paper. Pre-requisite for CLS 155 is CLS 31 or 56, or Greek 7. This class is not appropriate for graduate students, because it is primarily a general-education class for beginners in the classics.

Workload and grading:

You will read nine tragedies, two satyr plays, fragments of lost plays, an ancient theoretical work, and a modern textbook; the average assignment will be one play per week. You will write five short papers, each of about 500 words. There will be a two-hour final exam.

The grades will be computed as follows:

Schedule of exams and assignments:

The final exam will be Tuesday, 6 May, at noon.

Make-up exams will be given only in exceptional circumstances, and only if you make arrangements at least 24 hours before the scheduled time of the exam.

Written assignments are due in class on 8 February, 22 February, 7 March, 4 April, and 18 April. All of these dates are Fridays. There will be occasional worksheets, normally due in the next class, to introduce tools and techniques you will use in the assignments. For CLS 155, the major paper is due on Friday 11 April, with intermediate milestones on 1 February, 22 February, 29 February, and 28 March, also all Fridays. Late papers will not be accepted. If you will not be in class on the day when an assignment is due, email it to me, in plain text format, to arrive by the end of class. Do not send your papers as word-processor documents, HTML, or other formatted files. The simplest way to send plain text is to paste the text into the body of an email.

General policies:
Complete the reading assigned for each class before that day's class; read each play before the first class that discusses it. You should bring the text to class along with your notes on the reading.

Attendance in class is required. Thoughtful discussion is part of the work of this class, and written assignments will build on class work. On the other hand, if you must occasionally miss class for a legitimate reason, I will assume you can get notes from a classmate keep up with the work.

I call your attention to University policy against plagiarism and other forms of cheating. Please refer to the Bulletin and the Pachyderm for details.

I am happy to read drafts of papers as you work on them, or to answer questions about assignments. You may not re-write and re-submit assigned papers; the final copy is due on the scheduled due date, and will be graded.

Please note that except in the most extraordinary circumstances, I will not give "incomplete" grades.

No extra credit work is permitted, and grades in this course are not "curved."

Topics and reading assignments by class:
Due dates in brown are for CL 155 only; those in green apply to all sections. Links are to the assigned texts in Perseus; you may read any translation.
1. Wednesday, 16 January: introduction; policies and procedures
2. Friday, 17 January: historical framework; performance practices in the Greek theater. Storey and Allan ch. 1; read chapters 2 and 5 over the next two weeks and use chapter 6 for review
3. Tuesday, 22 January: Aeschylus. Persians
4. Friday, 25 January: Persians
5. Tuesday, 29 January: Persians
6. Wednesday, 30 January: Introduction to the Theban story
7. Friday, 1 February: Play data sheet due. Seven Against Thebes
8. Tuesday, 5 February: Seven Against Thebes
9. Wednesday, 6 February: Seven Against Thebes
10. Friday, 8 February: First assignment due. Fragments of the rest of Aeschylus's Theban tetralogy
11. Tuesday, 12 February: Sophocles. Antigone
12. Wednesday, 13 February: Antigone
13. Friday, 15 February: Antigone
14. Tuesday, 19 February: Oedipus the King
15. Wednesday, 20 February: Oedipus the King
16. Friday, 22 February: Preliminary outline due. Second assignment due. Oedipus the King
17. Tuesday, 26 February: Oedipus at Colonus
18. Wednesday, 27 February: Oedipus at Colonus
19. Friday, 29 February: Preliminary bibliography due. Oedipus at Colonus
20. Tuesday, 4 March: Euripides, Suppliant Women
21. Wednesday, 5 March: Suppliant Women
22. Friday, 7 March: Third assignment due. Suppliant Women
23. Tuesday, 11 March: Phoenissae
24. Wednesday, 12 March: Phoenissae
25. Friday, 14 March: no class; Prof. Mahoney will be away
26. Tuesday 25 March: Bacchae
27. Wednesday, 26 March: Bacchae
29. Friday, 28 March: Working bibliography and final outline due. Bacchae
30. Tuesday, 1 April: Fragments of other Theban plays by Euripides
31. Wednesday, 2 April: Ion
32. Friday, 4 April: Fourth assignment due. Ion
33. Tuesday, 8 April: Ion
34. Wednesday, 9 April: Aristotle's Poetics
35. Friday, 11 April: Major paper due. Poetics
36. Tuesday, 15 April: Poetics
37. Wednesday, 16 April: Poetics
38. Friday, 18 April: Fifth assignment due. Introduction to satyr plays; Storey and Allan ch. 3
39. Tuesday, 22 April: Euripides, Cyclops
40. Wednesday, 23 April: Sophocles, Ichneutae
41. Friday, 25 April: Review and summary
42. Tuesday, 6 May: Final exam, noon

Selected bibliography:
This bibliography is limited to books in English that are available in Tisch Library.

Texts and alternate translations
Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes, translated by Anthony Hecht and Helen H. Bacon. New York: 1973. PA3827.S4 H4
Sophocles, The Oedipus Cycle, translated by Dudley Fitts and Robert Fitzgerald. New York: 1969. PA4414.A2 F5 1969
Sophocles, The Theban Plays, translated by David Grene. New York: 1994. PA4414 .A2 1994
Sophocles, edited and translated by Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones. Cambridge: 1994. PA4414.A1 L56 1994
Euripides, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Chicago: 1955-1959. PA3975 .A2 1955
Euripides, Bacchae, translated by Stephen Esposito. Newburyport: 1998. PA3975.B2 E86 1998
Euripides, Ion, edited and translated by K.H. Lee. Warminster: 1997. PA3973 .I6 1997
Euripides, Phoenician Women, translated by Peter Burian and Brian Swann. New York: 1981. PA3975 .Z474 1979
Euripides, Suppliant Women, translated by Rosanna Warren and Stephen Scully. New York: 1995. PA3975.S9 W37 1995
Aristotle, Poetics, translated by Leon Golden. Tallahassee: 1981. PN1040 .A513 1981
------------, edited and translated by Stephen Halliwell. Cambridge: 1995. PA3621 .A75 1995

Other books
W. S. Allen, Vox Graeca. London: 1968. PA267.A4
John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, Oswyn Murray, The Oxford History of the Classical World. Oxford: 1986. DE59 .O94 1986
Eric Csapo and William Slater, The Context of Ancient Drama. Ann Arbor: 1995. PA3024.C75 1995
P. E. Easterling, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Greek Tragedy. Cambridge: 1997. PA3131.E28 1997
Michael Grant, Atlas of Ancient History. New York: 1994. G1033.G65 1994 (reference)
Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, The Oxford Classical Dictionary. New York: 1966. DE5.O9 1996
John H. Huddliston, Greek Tragedy in the Light of Vase Paintings. New York: 1898. NK4645 .H8
J. Jones, On Aristotle and Greek Tragedy. New York: 1962. PA3131 .J6
H. D. F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy: A Literary Study. London: 1939. PA3131.K5
Richmond Lattimore, Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy. Ann Arbor: 1964. PA3133 .L3
A. D. Nuttall, Why Does Tragedy Give Pleasure? Oxford: 1996. PN1892.N88 1996
L. D. Reynolds and Nigel Wilson, Scribes and Scholars. Oxford: 1974. Z40.R4 1974
William C. Scott, Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater. Hanover: 1984. ML169 .S37 1984
------------, Musical Design in Sophoclean Theater. Hanover: 1996. ML169.S38 1996
Charles Segal, Dionysiac Poetics and Euripides' Bacchae. Princeton: 1982. PA3973.B2 S56 1982
------------, Tragedy and Civilization. Norman: 1999. PA4417 .S47 1999
Erich Segal, Oxford Readings in Greek Tragedy. Oxford: 1983. PA3133.G68 1983b
George Steiner, Antigones. New York: 1984. PA4413.A7 S76 1984
Oliver Taplin, Greek Tragedy in Action. Berkeley: 1978. PA3201 .T3
Cedric Whitman, Sophocles: a Study of Heroic Humanism. Cambridge: 1951. PA4417.W5
Bernhard Zimmermann, Greek Tragedy: an Introduction. Baltimore: 1991. PA3131 .Z513 1991

On-line resources:
Introduction to the fifth century BC
Introduction to the Theban stories
Satyrs at play
Perseus: a digital library with an extensive collection on Ancient Greece
Diotima: Women and Gender in the Ancient World
Suda On Line: a 10th-century Greek encyclopedia of classical antiquity, being translated into English by a team of scholars
Fragment of a Greek Tragedy: a well-known parody by A. E. Housman (yes, the poet: he was also a classical scholar)
American Philological Association (APA): the professional association for classicists in the US
Classical Association of New England (CANE): the professional association for classicists in New England