Classical Epic Course Directory Spring 2003 Robin Mitchell-Boyask, Department of Greek, Hebrew and Roman Classics Temple University

updated 28 January 2008

General background resources

•  Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Homer to Alexander
  
• Character Glossary for Greek Mythology, including geneological charts Quick answers to your perplexity about who s/he is.
  
• Proto Indo-European, anyone? And an on-line article from Scientic American on Indo-European
  
• The Milman Parry Collection Film Archive This includes lectures by Albert Lord.

Homer

• Study guides:
  • Study guide for Homer's Iliad
  • Study guide for Homer's Odyssey
  • The Epic Cycle
    
• Homer and History
  • Who (or what) was Homer? and what was Troy?
  • Troy VII and the Historicity of the Trojan War
    
• The Geometric Structure of Scenes in the Iliad. Taken from Cedric Whitman's Homer and the Heroic Tradition, this chart shows the complexity of the Iliad's architecture. To understand the term "Geometric" and to situate the Iliad's complex scale in broader culture, look at this vase, which was made around the same time as one of the dates posited for the composition of the Homeric epics.
  v
• Images of the Trojan War
  
• Homer bibliography
  
• Listen to Homer!
  • Stanley Lombardo recites Iliad Book 1 in its entirety.
  • Homer's Iliad, Book 1, lines 1-52 read in the restored pronunciation of classical Greek by Stephen G. Daitz, City University of New York.
  • Homeric Singing - An Approach to the Original Performance This includes a sound file of Homer sung in Greek
  • Gregory Nagy's Homer in Performance Web Page Sound files of Homer recitations in Greek
    
• Scholarship
  • Martin Mueller has created an electronic reprint of his 1984 book The Iliad, "a guide for readers who want a non-technical but fairly detailed introduction to the narrative architecture and major themes of the Iliad"
  • An on-line text of Gregory Nagy's important work The Best of the Achaeans This is only available through a Temple connection or from another instituion subscribing to JHUP's Project Muse
  • An on-line text of Gregory Nagy's Homeric Questions
  • Arethusa 35.1, Winter 2002. Epos and Mythos: Language and Narrative in Homeric Epic (Project Muse)
  • Arethusa 30.2 Spring 1997 The Iliad and its Contexts
    
• Texts and Tools. Note that the Homer texts can be changed to see a transliteration of the Greek or Samuel Butler's translation.
  • Iliad
  • Odyssey
  • Epic Cycle Fragments and Summaries
  • The Chicago Homer allows users to search texts in Greek and the Lattimore translation of Homer
  • Homer on Papyrus Fragments. What did Homeric texts look like?
  • Homer's Trojan Theater (an interactive tool to demonstrate Homer's visualization of the great battles in the Iliad)
    

Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh study guide (from Texas)

ETCSL catalogue: narrative and mythological compositions from the Ancient Near East

Mahabharata

• The Bhagavad Gita as background to the Mahabharata
• A geocities page that explains much. Recommended
• A good summary from a scholarly expert
• A hypertext Mahabharata Useful after you know the rough outline
• Hinduism
• The Families of the Ruling Kings in the Mahabharata Family trees!!!

Apollonius

•  Remote site devoted to Apollonius' Argonautica

Vergil

•  Online texts: in Latin and English
  
• Study guide for Vergil's Aeneid
  
• Wilfried Stroh recites Aeneid Book IV in Latin
  
• Vergil's Aeneid, Book 1, lines 1-49 read in the restored pronunciation of classical Latin by Robert P. Sonkowsky, University of Minnesota.
  
• History time line and image links
  
• The Legend of Aeneas and the Foundation of Rome
  
• Basic Themes by Viktor Poschl
  
• Aeneas on the Ara Pacis
  
• Tomb of Aeneas at Lavinium
  
• Ancient Paths Through Text and Image:Aeneas in the Underworld
  
• Images of Roman Myth
  
• Vergil's Home Page: a comprehensive guide to the world of Vergil on the Internet.