Spring 2007 Courses

English 314-01: Epic Traditions: Myths of the Hero (Krier)

TH 10:10-11:40am, Olin-Rice 301

In this course we'll study myths of the hero by looking at creation stories, epics, and plays: the Sumerian Enuma Elish, Gilgamesh, stories of divine combat from the Hebrew Bible, excerpts from the Iliad and the Aeneid, all of the Odyssey, Shakespeare's Antony & Cleopatra, excerpts from Edmund Spenser's quest-romance The Faerie Queene, and John Milton's Paradise Lost. We'll have brief visits as well with excerpts from the medieval Beowulf, Dante's Inferno, Shakespeare's Othello.

We'll consider the warrior hero, the trickster, the adventurer-wanderer, the hero of mental acumen, the questing knight, the culture hero, the rebel against tyranny, the female hero, the tragic hero, the sage. We'll look at motifs like the hero's journey, the hero's friend or double, descents to the underworld, the hero's wounding, the hero's transformation, the hero as storyteller, the hero's relationships to the divine, to nature, to the feminine, to animal life.

There will be two essays (one of which can explore some modern version of a hero in light of our premodern works, or some other creation myth in relation to heroism), a mid-term and a final exam.

Note: This course has no prerequisites. Any prerequisites listed by the Registrar will be waived. This course can serve as a gateway course to the English major. This course fulfills the English-major requirement for a pre-1700 course.

Spring 2007 Course Listings