HUM12.1X: MASTERPIECES OF WORLD LITERATURE: The Ancient World- SYLLABUS
Overview
Course Instructors
David Damrosch and Martin Puchner
Online Teaching Fellows
Miles Osgood and A. J. Goldman
Course Description
This short literature course examines how civilizations and cultures of the ancient world defined themselves through literature and how that literature has continued to contribute to our understanding of those civilizations and cultures today.
Cities, nations, and empires from antiquity through the middle ages drew on foundational histories and myths for their identities, relating these narratives through generations by means of oral-storytelling and new writing technologies. These epics, story collections, and novels, which take a keen interest in heroic travelers, would eventually travel themselves, finding new global audiences as the first works of world literature.
Tracing developments in language, writing, and literary genre, this course also travels in time, from legendary accounts of ancient kings to histories of medieval courts and early-modern exploration. We will stop to consider all of these texts affected the history of their own eras, but also how they have continued to find new prominence and significance in ours.
What You'll Learn in the Course
The early history of World Literature
How literary works are transformed by cultural transmission and modern recovery
How to critically analyze literary works
The significance of major technological advances in writing
Grading
There is 1 graded assessment type in this course:
- Section Quiz assessments. These are a set of multiple choice questions appearing at the end of each section of the course.
A passing grade in this course is 65%.
COURSE OUTLINE
Section 1--Introduction: What is World Literature?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe formulated his concept of world literature (Weltliteratur) in the early nineteenth century while reading a mixture of Greek and Latin classics, Persian and Serbian poetry, and a Chinese novel.
This week there is no specific advised reading assignment.
Section 2--The Birth of Literature: The Epic of Gilgamesh
Written three and a half millennia ago, The Epic of Gilgamesh was forgotten for nearly two thousand years, until Austin Henry Layard and Hormuzd Rassam excavated the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. There, the library of Ashurbanipal yielded the long-forgotten text, inscribed on clay tablets, the first known great masterpiece of world literature and itself a text about exploring the world.
The advised reading for this module is the entirety of the Epic. The course team recommends the English translation by Andrew George. For a public domain English translation, you can use R. Campbell Thompson's version, and you can find a version of some of the Babylonian fragments on Project Gutenberg.
Section 3--Homer and the Archeology of the Classical Past: The Odyssey
World literature has always rested on a foundation of classical works. Continuing the discussion from the previous week, this unit will take up Homer's The Odyssey in light of Heinrich Schliemann’s excavations in Troy. Focusing on the episodes from the epic that emphasize intercultural contact, we read this text as a quintessential meditation on cultural dynamics and exploration.
The advised reading for this module includes books 5-12 of the Odyssey. Strongly encouraged but not required are the first book and books 23 and 24. The course team recommends the English translation by Robert Fagles. But you can find a public domain English translation at the Perseus Project. If you would like to look at an edition of The Odyssey in the original Greek, you can also find that at the Perseus Project.
Section 4--West-Eastern Conversations: The Thousand and One Nights
This work long circulated within the Middle East as popular entertainment and then took a crucial detour into France, where many of its most famous tales first appeared in the translation by Antoine Galland in the early eighteenth century. Scheherazade’s tales of transformation and magic, travel, and adventure have themselves changed shape as they have circulated abroad in translation, from Galland to Sir Richard Burton to Husain Haddawy in the present.
Required Readings: Prologue, The Story of King Shahrayar and Shahrazad, His Vizier’s Daughter, The Tale of the Ox and the Donkey, The Tale of the Merchant and His Wife, The Story of the Merchant and the Demon, The First Old Man’s Tale, The Second Old Man’s Tale, The Third Old Man’s Tale, The Story of the Fisherman and the Demon, The Tale of King Yunan and the Sage Duban, The Tale of the Husband and the Parrot, The Tale of the King’s Son and the She–Ghoul, The Tale of the Enchanted King. For a modern English translation, the course team recommends the The Arabian Nights, trans. Husain Haddawy (Norton, 2008). The 1885 translation of the 1001 Nights by the British explorer and Arabist Richard Francis Burton is available via the Internet Archive.
Section 5--The Floating World: The Tale of Genji
A masterpiece of classical Japanese literature, the Genji monogatari was written around the year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a woman deeply learned in the Chinese tradition usually mastered only by men. Drawing on a wealth of Chinese and Japanese poetry and on her keen observations of the surrounding courtly life, Murasaki revolutionized the vernacular Japanese romance tradition of her day.
The advised reading assignment includes: From Chapter I. The Lady of the Paulownia–Courtyard Chambers; From Chapter II. Broom Cypress; From Chapter V. Little Purple Gromwell; From Chapter VII. An Imperial Celebration of Autumn Foliage; From Chapter IX. Leaves of Wild Ginger; From Chapter XII. Exile to Suma; From Chapter XIII. The Lady at Akashi; From Chapter XXV. Fireflies; From Chapter XL. The Rites.
For an English translation, the course team recommends Royall Tyler's translation. You may find a public domain English translation of the text by Edward G. Seidensticker at the University of Oxford Text Archive. If you would like to attempt to read a 1654 Japanese version of the text, you can find it at the Asian Division of the Library of Congress.
Section 6--The First National Epic: The Lusiads
All of the major qualities of Renaissance culture come together in Luis Vaz de Camões' epic poem The Lusiads (1572), a work that almost single-handedly transformed vernacular Portuguese into a literary language. Camões rewrites Homer’s Odyssey as the modern tale of his ancestor Vasco da Gama's voyage of discovery seventy-five years earlier around the tip of Africa and across the Indian Ocean to south India. Mythic grandeur coexists with modern realism as Camões strives to present Portugal not in the margins of Europe, but as the center of the newly evolving world system of trade, conquest, and cultural exchange.
The advised reading for this module is the entirety of The Lusiads. You can read the epic in English translation at Project Gutenberg. You may also find it in the original Portuguese at oslusiads.com.
FAQ
How long does the course take?
There are 6 weeks of content plus , with some weeks containing 2 sections of content, or additional ungraded bonus material. This course is self-paced. You have until 4/30/2018 aty 11:59 UTC to complete all materials.
When is work due? Are there deadlines?The section quizzes can be completed anytime until 4/30/2018, so that you have time to review the videos or go back to material that you missed.
I am doing well on the assessments, but when I look under "Progress", I have a very low grade. Why?
The grade is calculated based on all of the assessments you have completed and the assessments that you have not completed (EdX says you have a "zero" on those assessments until you have attempted them). You will see your overall grade improve as you progress through the course.
Whom can I contact if I have a question or problem?
For questions regarding the edX platform, you can contact edX via https://www.edx.org/contact-us.
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