106-211 Classical and Christian Backgrounds to English Literature

Note

Available as 106-311 at 3rd-year level.

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Subject Description

This subject examines a range of Classical and Christian works to establish how and why they have been influential in Western literature and thought. Students who complete this subject successfully will have read a representative range of Classical literature (representing epic, mythology, elegy, pastoral, satire, theology, literary theory); will have studied several books of the Bible and been introduced to various schools of interpretation (from Patristic to modern times); and will have investigated the many ways in which Classical and Biblical writings have influenced Western thought and literature over the past two millennia.

Assessment

Written work of not more than 5000 words.

Prescribed Texts

• Augustine, On Christian Doctrine, Confessions. Penguin.
• NO_AUTHOR, The Bible. (with Apocrypha) OUP/CUP.
• Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy. Bobbs-Merrill or Penguin.
• NO_AUTHOR, The Epic of Gilgamesh. Penguin.
• Homer, Odyssey. Oxford.
• S E Hooke ed, Middle Eastern Mythology. Pelican.
• Horace and Persius, Satires. Penguin.
• Juvenal, Satires. Penguin.
• Ovid, Metamorphoses. Penguin.
• Sophocles, Oedipus Tyrannus. Norton.
• Virgil, Eclogues and Georgics. Oxford.
• Virgil, Aeneid. Oxford.
• Aristotle, Horace.
• Longinus, Classical Literary Criticism. Penguin.