Ancient Greek Language – Advanced

The intensive class for advanced ancient Greek learners will comprise of a thorough reading of two complete text units: Homer’s Odyssey Book 9 and Iliad Book 24. The students will be shortly introduced into the Homeric apparatus: metrics, text transmission, the Homeric question. And then, verse by verse, several of the most vibrant scenes of the European literature will be visited, that is a series of confrontations with our innermost fears (Lotus Eaters, Cyconians and ovbviously the Cyclops) and our most profound emotions (a grieved father retrieves the body of his dead son from his terrible enemy). We shall focus on the very means Homer uses to construct this edifice: prosodic, syntactic, lexical.
Each of the ten course days will comprise of 4 hours of reading together, focusing on the lexical (etymologies, lexical families etc) and syntactical complexities of the texts, as well as to poetic syntax, style, and rhetoric. Participants are expected to dedicate 2 hours of daily individual work in preparing the fragments that would be discussed the following course day.

Course leader

Stefan Colceriu

Target group

The course is designed for those who have functionally assimilated Greek morphology and syntax and have a rich, consolidated Greek vocabulary (i.e., to the level of what methods like Reading Greek or Hermaion-Discovering Greek Step by Step cover in terms of morphology, syntax, and vocabulary).

Course aim

By the end of the course, participants will have improved their ability to read difficult Greek texts, from a variety of genres.