Athena's Owl

The Classical Studies program is excited to announce that Biblical Greek will soon be offered at ECU. We have been working closely with the faculty in the Religious Studies program to make this opportunity possible for students. It will benefit both Classics students, who will have more upper-level Greek courses to choose from and who will get the chance to read important literature of the ancient Near East in its original language. And it will benefit Religious Studies students, who will be able to read one of the primary texts in their field in its original language and who will be able to apply to seminaries or divinity schools with Greek already under their belt.

The Biblical Greek courses will be offered in conjunction with Prof. Lee Johnson’s Religious Studies courses on the Life and Teachings of Jesus (RELI 3896) and on Paul and His Letters (RELI 3796). Starting this spring with RELI 3896, students interested in Greek will sign up for both the Religious Studies courses and a separate course in Biblical Greek. (For now, this will be GRK 4521, Directed Readings in Greek.) Students will attend the regular Religious Studies course and will meet separately once a week with Prof. Johnson to read the course’s readings in the original Greek.

Students will need to complete Greek courses at least through GRK 1002 in order to take the Biblical Greek offerings. Students may be concurrently enrolled in Biblical Greek and second-year Classical Greek (GRK 1003 and 1004). There is also a prerequisite for the Jesus and Paul courses, namely either Introduction to Old Testament (RELI 2695) or Introduction to New Testament (RELI 2696).

Direct questions either to Prof. Johnson (johnsonle@ecu.edu) or the Classics program director Prof. John Given (givenj@ecu.edu)

There is a new online tool available to Classical Studies scholars and students.

About 25 years ago, the Packard Humanities Institute set out to digitize Latin Literature so that it might be searchable. They successfully created files for most significant Latin authors and began selling CD-ROMs. There was never, however, a truly flexible software interface, and so Latinists always lagged behind their Hellenist counterparts in their ability to search ancient literature, since the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae team at UC-Irvine had surpassed the PHI project. Today, the TLG has been available online for years (http://www.tlg.uci.edu/). Its interface is excellent and it is very fast. Earlier this year, the TLG added a completely searchable version of the standard Greek-English Lexicon, Liddell-Scott-Jones (http://stephanus.tlg.uci.edu/lsj/#eid=1&context=lsj). It too is very fast and very well-designed. The layout is more easily readable than the print LSJ, and the lexicon’s linkage to the entire TLG corpus is invaluable. I have started to use it almost exclusively for my lexical needs.

The best Latinists have had is the Perseus site (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/), a fine resource to be sure, but limited in the number of texts it contains and one of the slowest websites on the internet. Times are starting to change, though. The PHI Latin Texts have now appeared online (http://latin.packhum.org/index). The website is primitive. You can browse the Latin authors’ texts very easily, but searching is very basic. Most annoyingly, you have to look up a numerical code for a given author and work, write it down or memorize it, and then click over to the search page and type the numerical code along with your search term. There are some advanced search capabilities, but you need to key in the commands rather than select from drop-down menus or other more user-friendly interactions. There is a “concordance” function, which searches the entire corpus and prints the occurrences of your word along with the surrounding one line of text. The search and concordance functions are lightning fast.

The best feature of the new PHI website, as opposed to the TLG, is that it is free. The TLG has some central texts available as free samples, and its LSJ can be used free without the links to the corpus. But PHI should be congratulated on its open access. So we are taking a good step in the right direction. Classical Studies has always been in the forefront of online resources among the humanities disciplines. Let’s hope things continue to improve.

All are invited to the Classical Studies Convocation. It will take place on Friday, September 16 at 3:30 p.m. in Bate Building room 1025. (Date is postponement due to Hurricane Irene.) A reception will follow immediately in the Foreign Languages & Literatures Department lounge.

The program includes a tribute to the late filmmaker Michael Cacoyannis and a welcome from Alan White, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Other speakers include Prof. Frank Romer, undergraduate senior Sara Davis, and program director John Given, who will speak on the state of the Classics Program at the beginning of 2011.

Anyone interested in Classical Studies is welcome to attend.

Athena’s Owl is happy to be re-awakened after a summer of slumber. It was a fine time devoted to summer teaching, research and maybe even some vacation. (I highly recommend the coast of Maine — a lovely spot in the summer months!)

The fall semester in the ECU Classics program has brought many fine new students into our classes. Our enrollments in Greek, Latin and Classical Studies courses are, in a word, outstanding. In fact, Latin and Greek courses both hit an all-time high in their enrollments. The faculty are very excited to see so much interest in Classics!

LATN 1001:  70 students (2 sections) in First-year Latin
LATN 1003: 27 students in Second-year Latin
LATN 4001: 6 students in Silver Age Latin

GRK 1001: 23 students in First-year Greek
GRK 1003: 5 students in Second-year Greek

CLAS 1300: 58 students in Greek and Latin for Vocabulary Building
CLAS 1500: 114 students in Classical Mythology
CLAS 2000: 39 students in Introduction to Classics
CLAS 2500: 22 students in Greek Tragedy in Translation
CLAS 3400: 114 students in The Ancient City: Rome
MULT 3500: 1 student writing a Senior Thesis

In addition to our outstanding enrollments, we can report that we are starting the year with 18 declared Classical Studies majors and 11 minors, the most majors and minors we’ve ever had at the beginning of the year.

Classical Studies at ECU is thriving!! If you have any questions or interest in the ECU Classics program, please contact the program director, Dr. John Given at givenj@ecu.edu.

On Monday, April 11, 2011, the ECU Classics Program will present the world premiere live performance of A Thousand Kisses. The comic romance is a new play by Academy Award-winning screenwriter and playwright Frederic Raphael. It will take place in Room C209 of the ECU Science & Technology Building. The production is free and requires no tickets. The show is directed by yours truly, John Given, and features a cast of faculty and graduate students from the departments of English, History and Foreign Languages & Literatures, along with members of the Greenville community.

Wait… the ECU Classics Program is producing the world premiere of a play by an Oscar-winning screenwriter??? Yeah, strange isn’t it?

This has proven to be one of the strangest events of my young directorial career. Back in January, as we were getting The Brothers Menaechmus prepared for the stage, our dear friend Peter Green, former distinguished visiting professor at ECU, sent me a script written by “a friend.” He suggested that we might put it on at ECU. His friend was looking for a workshop production, to see how a live audience would receive the play. Peter asked if I would direct and take the lead role. Less than a week from opening Brothers Menaechmus, I politely responded that I would look at it after we closed. Really, though, the last thing I wanted to do was take on another play in the midst of a very busy semester.

So a few days after the Plautus play closed, I opened the script. I found a play about the Roman poet Catullus and his love affair with the Roman aristocrat Clodia Metelli. I started reading, looking for excuses to say no. After finishing it, though, I couldn’t. It was brilliantly written, built around about three dozen of Catullus’s poems. The characters were very well drawn. The sophisticated scene work would present a fun challenge. And the thought of playing Catullus in this script was so very tempting. Then I looked at the author’s name and discovered that he had been nominated for two Oscars in the 1960s, and won one. More recently, he had written the screenplay for Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick’s final film, along with numerous novels and non-fiction works. This I could not refuse. And so I wrote to Peter and accepted the assignment.

The experience has been most rewarding. I recruited a number of colleagues from the ECU faculty, and tapped Danielle Bryan, last year’s title character in Lysistrata, to play Clodia. I asked Glenn Hubbard of our School of Communication to design the sound. Alyssa Grace, an undergraduate Classics and Music Education major, agreed to play flute for the show; we selected several actual ancient Greek compositions. Finally, I turned to my own brother Matthew Given, a professional sound man, to put together the sound effects for the radio play.

Now, this is a radio play. So when you come, you might be a little surprised. You’ll find all dozen actors seated at a table, reading scripts. (Hence, we can get away with performing it in a large classroom.) We don’t much want you to look at us. Close your eyes if you’d like. You won’t fall asleep, I promise. Imagine that you’re actually listening to a radio and let the voices create the pictures for you. The ebb and flow of the scenes, often demarcated with one of Catullus’s poems, is perfectly shaped to let the plot unfold in a measured rhythm. It’s probably not often that you’ll have the chance to experience a radio play in the 21st century. We think you’re going to like it.

For complete information on the play, see www.ecu.edu/Classics/1000kisses.cfm.

From tragedy, we turn to the world of Greek Old Comedy. We read Aristophanes’ Acharnians in Jeffrey Henderson’s final translation. Our reporter for the week is Andrea Clouse. She writes:

This week we’ve moved from tragedies to comedies.  Comedies are sometimes harder to study because you can’t always tell if the playwright is being serious or funny.  Aristophanes’ Acharnians was written in 425 BC, six years after the Peloponnesian War began.  The main character is Dicaeopolis, a farmer forced to live within the city of Athens while the war destroys his farm.  An interesting point about our main character, Dicaeopolis, is that we do not learn his name until a third of the way through the play.  This is different from the epics and tragedies we’ve read where names and lineage are broadcast all the time.  This technique makes Dicaeopolis an average, anonymous citizen and enables Aristophanes to give him many voices and roles, a trait unique to comedies.  He is the voice of Aristophanes and Euripides as well as a farmer and a beggar.  Dicaeopolis also parodies Euripides’ character Telephus throughout the play by taking the coal hostage and dressing as a beggar.  As the play progresses and Dicaeopolis thrives under his peace treaty, we’re forced to question who is right and who is wrong.  Diacaeopolis’ excess is humorous, but the more he mocks the injured soldier the more we understand how wrong his actions are.

After Aeschylus and Sophocles, we turn to Euripides and his Medea, a disturbing portrait of a woman who murders her children to seek revenge against the husband who betrays her. Our discussion leaders were Selecia Dean and Alyssa Grace, who filed separate reports. First, Ms. Dean and then Ms. Grace:

Medea is a very interesting character; she knew how to act in order to get what she wanted in the different situations. For example, she acted as if she was a traditional woman so she could get the chorus on her side and she also made Jason believe she understood why he took another wife. In the beginning she appeared to be really upset about the whole situation. She said numerous times how Jason disrespected their bed by marrying the princess. She decided to kill the princess and the children so that Jason would not be able to have any more children and so that he would not have any heirs. Medea had a way with words. She convinced Jason to take their children to the princess to convince her to allow them to stay out of exile. She also convinced Creon to allow her to stay one more day before being exiled, which was all she needed in order to put her plan in motion. When Medea received the news about the princess and her father dying she wanted to the messenger to tell her in great details what happened.

Medea was very concerned about what others would think of her. She said many times that she did not want her enemies to laugh at her, so she had to go through with her plans to get revenge on Jason. There was one point in the play where Medea seemed to be having an internal battle with herself. She was having second thoughts about going through with killing her children. At one point she decided not to kill her children and just take them with her; then she decided she would rather have them killed by her own hands than by her enemies.

Medea is very interesting, but also very complex. This is my favorite play and Medea is my all-time favorite character. This play is a classic example of the saying “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”. Medea is defiantly a woman scorned. What makes her so deadly is she has the powers to do something about it. I enjoyed reading the play and learning about her character, but the one thing I can never wrap my head around is the fact she actually killed her children. I guess if she did not go through with it, she would not be as famous and remembered as she is today.

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For our discussion of Medea , we spent a lot of time talking about whether or not she was truly a crazy person or if she was actually extremely smart in her actions and getting her revenge against Jason. A few people brought up the issue of her killing her children and thought that she was just an awful person and very insane for doing it, while others thought that she was actually being merciful and saving her children from death by her enemies’ hands. It was discussed that she really had not intended to kill her children but once the princess put on the poisoned gown it was too late to turn back. Her actions were then justified because she killed them quickly, whereas the others died a slow and very painful death.

As a class, we could not seem to come up with one specific time in the play where she decided to bring the kids into her plot. The nurse mentioned her fear for them at the beginning but we cannot really see where Medea makes the decision herself. It is never very clear in the play and without this information you cannot see Medea as a sane person until you look further into the story.

As a class we all came to the conclusion that Medea was acting very justly when she made the decision to kill her children and to take her revenge on Jason. Medea’s monologue to herself shows that she is a rational person and that she hasn’t simply gone insane. This monologue changes our whole perception of her and shows us that she is still thinking logically.

I love Medea. I think she is one of my favorite characters of all time. There is just so much to her character and what she does is always surprising. You cannot simply look at the surface with her. You have to dig deeper into the story and really figure out what she’s doing behind the scenes.

Our reading this week in our senior seminar was Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone. Our discussion leaders and summary writers are: Kirsis Concepcion, Selecia Dean and Kelly Hunnings.

Creon and Antigone are quickly established as obdurate characters in Sophocles’ Antigone.  Antigone, however, proves to be unwavering throughout the course of the play whereas Creon’s character fluctuates.  Despite being the title character, Antigone is not necessarily the center of the story.  The play is ultimately about the downfall of the king of Thebes.

Antigone decides to surpass the law and bury her brother Polynices.  By doing this she creates the central conflict of the play by asserting that she follows a law that is above the king.  Not concerned with problems of the state, Antigone does not follow man’s law, rather she receives instruction and guidance from divine powers.  This sets up an interesting problem, one that largely distinguishes Creon and Antigone from one another: Follow the law or show devotion for family?  Antigone’s decision to defy Creon’s order reveals a rebellious side to her character.  Sophocles allows the audience to feel sympathy for Antigone and provides moments in the play where the reader can commiserate.  For example, on page 39 (484), Antigone says, “It is in my nature to form ties of love not hate.”  Antigone possesses a kind of traditional feminine role.  She, like the standard woman of ancient Greece, is responsible for funeral rites and the preservation of the family.  Antigone chooses to follow the law of philia (love) instead of a law decreed by a man.  Creon is faced with similar choices as Antigone.  He, too, must make a choice between the state or his family.  Creon chooses the state, “for if I support relatives who are lawless, then truly I must do the same for others outside my family” (619). Antigone and Creon share many similarities, yet, because of their differing priorities they arrive at different endings.

Although death is ultimately the end for Antigone, it is a purposeful death.  That is, her method of suicide is symbolic because she permanently silences herself.  By doing this she deprives Creon of any redemption and thus guarantees his downfall.  Death and marriage are both ritualized events that are witnessed by family and friends.  Both serve as a transition from one place to another and death is the ritualized event is Antigone’s choice. Antigone is more concerned with individuality rather than the state. Thus this separates her from society and makes her an outcast. This puts Antigone’s character in a liminal space and the only way she can transfer out of that state is through death.

Leaving the world of epic, Classics 4000, “The Concept of Character in Greek Literature,” began a series of weeks on Athenian tragedy. First up was Aeschylus’s Agamemnon. Our discussion leaders were Nathan Drosopoulos and Jordan Spencer. They provide the summary of our discussions:

We discussed when Clytemnestra actually made her first appearance, and how that was important because it shows how a play can be interpreted in different ways. One single line can be delivered in many different ways that show a variety of emotions. We also discussed how the Watchman is portrayed as a sympathetic character because he is stuck on a roof waiting to see the beacon signal “from Troy”. We also watched a video of an Agamemnon production showing how masks hide facial expressions. They make interpreting how actors say something a critical aspect in how the entire play is interpreted and portrayed. It was even discussed that you can “see” feelings portrayed by the characters by the actors’ body language that help aid how the actor wants the character to be seen. We then talked about the Chorus of Argive Elders who are 12 people who speak with one voice and have a narrator-like characterization. That was more or less day one.

On Thursday we discussed Clytemnestra’s character, whether she is a sympathetic character or not. We also discussed how the Greek audience would have seen her and how it is different from how we today would see her. It’s hard initially to believe that she is a sympathetic character because you have background knowledge that she will kill Agamemnon by the end of the play. She plays on female stereotypes repeatedly in her narrations in an effort to mask her true intentions. Depending on what audience she had she either had a strong personality or tried to come off as a loving wife who has been waiting at home. We compared her to Penelope because Penelope was the “ideal” female character and Clytemnestra was being masculinized throughout the course of the play. We ended Thursday discussing the Tapestry Scene in which Clytemnestra convinced Agamemnon to tread on the tapestries; we particularly focused on the five main reasons/arguments she gave to convince Agamemnon. We also talked about how from the very beginning of his arrival home Agamemnon told her to shut up.

In Classics 4000, The Concept of Character in Ancient Greek Literature, the third week’s readings brought us to the end of the Iliad. The discussion leaders were Kelly Hunnings and Kirsis Concepcion. Their summary follows:

Books 17–24 allow for Homer’s characters in the Iliad to experience much mourning.  These displays of mourning may occur in many different ways:  hair pulling, chest beating, as well as the act of defiling oneself.  Ultimately, the similarity between these various forms of mourning is self-mutilation.  What does this extreme mourning reveal about Homer’s characters?  The answer is not completely clear, but what is certain are the cultural realities and expectations of the ancient Greeks.

Homer’s audience would have understood the importance of retrieving and preserving a human’s dead body, as well as the significance of self-mutilation as mourning.  That is, the level of mourning is equivalent to the deceased person’s importance or fame.  An example of this is found with Achilles’ character when Thetis and the other women begin to mourn for Achilles before he is even dead (18.32–49). This indicates that Achilles is of very great importance.  Here, mourning may reveal fame.  Also, the ancient Greeks found the preservation and care for a dead body to be tremendously important.  Thus, Achilles’ savage mistreatment of Hector’s body defies that which is socially permissible to the ancient Greeks.  Furthermore, Homer purposefully crafts Hector as a sympathetic character by introducing Hector’s family.  Homer depicts Hector as one who may be related with, while also furthering the development of Achilles’ brutal character.

In an attempt to define character, it is significant to note how Achilles mourns the death of his friend, Patroklos.  First, the extent of Achilles’ mourning reveals the nature of his relationship with Patroklos.  Moreover, considering that most of Homer’s mourners are women, Achilles is feminized by his excessive mourning.  This act of being feminized may also display the nature of Achilles’ relationship with Patroklos, as well as another level of Achilles’ character. Achilles’ display of grief reveals a more tender side. Achilles’ is always known as short-tempered warrior.

Throughout the course of Books 17–24, Homer develops his characters by displaying the ancient Greek standard of mourning.  Furthermore, Homer allows his audience to sympathize with the Trojans because of the mistreatment of Hector’s body.  Homer uses these finals books as an opportunity to establish the realities of war, and by doing so develops Achilles, the Greek hero, as being brutal, and Hector, the enemy, as being one who evokes sympathy.