The Main Idea and Its Outcomes

The main idea of the course is to explore the intellectual implications of two literary forms--comedy and satire--which center on the production of laughter as a catharsis. We do this via three ways of looking at those forms. Each way brings its controlling question.

1. The original social and historical context: What did they think and feel?
2. The forms as literature and performance: What do we think and feel?
3. The perennial patterns in human biological, psychological, and social relationships: What do comedy and satire do to (or for) human bodies and minds?

The outcomes of the course are twofold, new and general.

1. New outcomes. These, from the course itself, are what one can do afterward that one probably couldn't do before:

• Link Classical comedies and satires to their original (social and philosophical and psychological) context.
• Show how literary form and performance function to create comic and satirical forms.
• Analyze how these literary forms, together with their social times and places, their philosophical positions, plus transcendent human psychology, may create catharses that transcend their original contexts.

2. General outcomes. These, for any graduate-to-be of Augustana, are continued practice with the crucial triad:

• Critical thinking (intellectual objectivity, problem-solving skill, construction and critique of arguments)
• Research (via paper and electronic sources)
• Writing (creation and communication of clear thought, effective argumentation)
  

How We Do This #1:  General Expectations and Outcomes

The work of the course--the readings, the exams, the other writing, and thus the grading--will always be founded on those three ways of looking at these forms and their three questions.

The course assumes no background at all in classical literature, history, or comic theory.  Informal lectures and handouts will attend to background when needed.  As outcomes, the class writes quizzes, blue book essays, and an individual study.  Those analyze various comedies and satires in ways that develop answers to the three questions of The Main Idea.

How We Do This #2:  The All-Important Details.

• The schedule of assignments
• The schedule of meeting times
• The grading system
• The textbooks
   

Daily Assignments and Topics:

This is an overview, for general orientation. The details come in weekly References for the class on:

A. The Individual Project lab assignments

B. The details of All-Class assignments

• Test and Paper Specifications
• Readings
• Main Lecture/Discussion Focuses
• Key Terms to Learn

1. December 2 - 6: The Start of Comedy: Order from Chaos (and Vice-Versa) in Selfhood and Ritual

Monday: Prologue: The characters (us) and the plot (the course)
Wednesday: Aristophanes, The Acharnians
Friday: Aristophanes, The Acharnians

2. December 9 - 13: Comedy, Stage Two: Society, Selfhood, and the New Philosophy

Monday: Aristophanes, The Clouds
Wednesday: Aristophanes, The Clouds
Friday: Aristophanes, The Wasps

3. December 16 - 20: Comedy, Stage Three: Society, Selfhood, and Wish-fulfillment

Monday: Aristophanes, The Wasps
Wednesday: Quick Quiz #1. Then, Aristophanes, The Poet and the Women
Friday: Aristophanes, The Poet and the Women

4. January 6 -10 : Mind, Body, Society, Synthesis, and Old Comedy

Monday: Aristophanes, The Poet and the Women
Wednesday: Conspectus: Old Comedy, rituals, social/political issues, psychoanalysis
Friday: Intermission: Mid-term exam

5. January 13 - 17 Meeting Those Romans

Monday: The mid-terms reenter and take a bow. Then: New Comedy.
Wednesday: Video Part 1 of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Friday: Video Part 2 of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

6. January 20 - 24: Meeting Those Romans-More Deeply

Monday: Introduction to Roman Values, Philosophies, Histories, and Forms
Wednesday: Plautus, The Braggart Soldier
Friday: Plautus, The Braggart Soldier

7. January 27 - 31: Romans, Sublimation, Archetypes ­ Galore

Monday: Plautus, The Brothers Menaechmus
Wednesday: Plautus, The Brothers Menaechmus
Friday: Plautus, The Pot of Gold

8. February 3 - 7: From comedy to satire. What's the difference?

Monday: Plautus, The Pot of Gold
Wednesday: Quick Quiz #2. Then, Horace, the selected Satires
Friday: Horace, the selected Satires

9. February 10 - 14: Satire: Epicurean vs. Stoic

Monday: Horace, the selected Satires
Wednesday: Persius, the selected Satires
Friday: Persius, the selected Satires

10. February 17 -21: From cynical satire back to comedy, to us, to exodos

Monday: Juvenal, the selected Satires
Wednesday: Juvenal, the selected Satires
Friday: Last Act: Retrospect, Conclusion, Catharsis

February 26: (Wednesday) Individual projects due - in T. Banks's office, Old Main 126, by Noon

February 27: (Thursday) Final exam, 9:00 A.M.

Meeting Times:

Students in Greek and Latin will arrange an additional weekly meetings with the instructor.

Grading:

• Prepared attendance at individual project sessions, 10%
• Two quick quizzes, 20% (10% each)
• Mid-term exam, 20%
• Individual project, 25%
• Final exam, 25%

Prepared attendance means to be in class unless you have a good excuse, and to show a reasonable preparation of the day's assignment.  Each Unprepared or Absence (after the first) lowers the grade in this realm by half a letterófrom A to A-, then to B+, then to B, and so on.  If I ever think your preparation hasn't been adequate, I'll let you know, either with a kind, discrete, but obviously regretful Tsk Tsk in class, or privately.  If you have to miss class, please let me know why.

Individual Projects

World Literature. The project is a paper, as follows:

• Mechanical essence: Write a 1-2 page essay for each week's discussion section, then polish and integrate them into a paper of 8 - 10 pages.
• Conceptual essence: Classical Views of My Comedy. You choose a comedy not assigned for class, then analyze it--weekly, in stages--according to the procedures of the course. Your comedy can be ancient, modern, or anywhere in between. It can be from the theatre, film, television-or whatever. The details about expectations come, of course, on the assignment sheets you'll receive for each weekly independent project session.

Greek: The project is:

• Your journal of interlinear translations and compositions
• All of your translation for the term, revised, polished, and typed/printed
• A brief (250 - 500-word) philosophy of translation, in accordance with the guidelines you'll get in the individual sessions.

Latin: The project is:

• Your journal of interlinear translations and compositions
• All of your translation for the term, revised, polished, and typed/printed
• A viva voce performance of twenty lines or so of a Horatian satire, in meter.
  

The Texts

Texts That We All Read

Aristophanes:  Lysistrata and Other Plays.
(Acharnians, Clouds) ISBN 0-14-044287-1
A. Sommerstein, translator.  Penguin Classic.

Aristophanes:  Frogs and Other Plays.
(Wasps, Poet & the Women) ISBN 0-14-044152-2
David Barrett, translator.  Penguin Classic.

Plautus:  Four Comedies.  ISBN 0-14-044149-2
(Brothers Menaechmus, Braggart Soldier, Haunted House, Pot of Gold)
Erich Segal, translator.  Penguin Classic .

Horace:  The Satires of Horace and Persius.  ISBN 0-14-044279-0
Niall Rudd, translator.  Penguin Classic.

Juvenal: Selected Satires
Handed out in class

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Video shown in class
 

Additional texts for Latin

Horace:  Satires. 
Perseus (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu) and other web sites to be specified

A Latin dictionary -- e.g.,ISBN 0-02-013340-5
Cassell's New Compact.  Macmillan .
 

Additional texts for Greek

Aristophanes:  Clouds (vols #1 & #2) ISBN 0-929524-02-0
Bryn Mawr Commentaries.  Bryn Mawr College.
Stone-Barnard, L., editor

A Greek dictionary ó e.g., ISBN 0-19-910207-4
Liddell & Scott Abridged.  Oxford University Press.

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