Greek Letters and Letter-writers (Greek) (PGT) GREEK5025

  • Academic Session: 2024-25
  • School: School of Humanities
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2 (Alternate Years)
  • Available to Visiting Students: Yes
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No

Short Description

This course examines one of the most important (and well-preserved) types of ancient Greek literature, the letter, which was key to creating and maintaining the reputations of key cultural figures from the ancient Greek world. It examines letters, collections of letters and letter-writers from across classical antiquity, focusing on some of the most famous names of ancient Greek culture, including Plato, Themistocles, Euripides and Socrates. It explores different types of letter, the roles they played in different historical and cultural contexts from the fourth century BC into Christian Late Antiquity.

Timetable

1x1hr lecture, 1x1hr seminar per week over 10 weeks as scheduled in MyCampus.

Requirements of Entry

Standard entry to Masters at College level

Excluded Courses

CLASSIC5124, CLASSIC4097, GREEK4035

Co-requisites

None

Assessment

Commentary on a Greek letter (1,200 words) - 35%

Essay (3,000 words) - 40%

Translation and commentary on a Greek letter (45 mins in-class test) - 25%

Course Aims

This course aims to:

■ Provide students with the opportunity to focus on a type of literature both crucial to and very common in Greek antiquity and explore its variety and importance

■ Foster students' awareness of the importance of the functions and contexts of Greek epistolography for understanding its place in Greek culture across a wide chronological span

■ Develop skills in close reading and analysis of literary texts, studied in translation

■ Develop students' exploring an important body of literature from a variety of different perspectives, reflecting the key themes of the course.

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Produce detailed commentaries of Greek epistolography

■ Show evidence of understanding the social, historical, and literary contexts of the letters examined

■ Present their own research relating to the themes of the course in a coherent and scholarly form

■ Analyse the interrelation between nature of literature with cultural and historical contexts.

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.