Greek 103: Heroes in Homer
Legacy of the Hero Assignment
This assignment, due the last day of class, June 7th, is the chance for you to demonstrate
what you have learned this quarter about heroic identities in Homer. Your assignment is
to choose a “passage" of a "text" about heroes to analyze in terms of what you have read
from Iliad and Odyssey 9. This can be anything from Homer to Quintus Smyrnaeus' Ta
Meth'Homerou ("The Stuff After Homer"), from the Cohen Brothers ("O Brother, Where
Art Thou?") to the X-men. A few questions I’d like you to consider: how is the hero
portrayed? How is this portrayal different from or similar to what we've read in Homer?
How would you account for these parallels/dissimilarities? On the 7th I would like each
of you to bring in the small selection from your "text" to present to the class.
Presentations should be in the 5-10 (absolute maximum) minute range.
Here are some possible topics:
--the portrayal of Diomedes in Iliad 5
--Achilles’ death in Quintus Smyrnaeus
--Virgil's Aeneas vs. Homer's Odysseus or Achilles
--the transformation of the Odysseus character in “O Brother...”
--the portrayal of Odysseus in the NBC mini series “Odyssey”
--Brad Pitt's version of Achilles in “Troy”
--the 300 at Thermopylae (Herodotus book 6) vs. Homeric heroic identity
--the superhero and the Homeric hero compared
Keep in mind that these are to be short and sweet--no hardcore research is required. If
you choose a text-text like Homer, you should aim to select five lines or so of the Greek
to present to the class. For other "texts" like films, a clip of 5 minutes or less. It would
actually be preferable if you choose something you already know about.
If you have any questions about possible topics, feel free to email me.