By Lonneke de Klerk
“Throughout classical antiquity, the great literary authors, all but one male, have dealt with masculinity and femininity, have had their heroes elevate, worship and make love to women; but also have let them patronise, seduce and violate them”. These words come from one of the first sentences of the course outline that describes the A&H 205 Classical Literature course. The course, taught by Dr. Helle Hochscheid, is a special one as it only runs once every two years.
As the name conveys, Classical Literature discusses the great literary works from ancient times. From Homer to Plato, from epic to comedy: A&H 205 takes a bird’s eye view on the famous classics. It does, however, take an interesting perspective. The subtitle of the course is Power and Gender in Ancient Culture. Gender has gained much popularity in the academic field in the last decade or so, and classical scholars have not stayed behind on this hype. But why look at gender in ancient literature?
When reading classical works of literature, we get an interesting insight on gender values of ancient times that we can hardly get from any other discipline. Of course, archaeology has given us much information on life B.C., but the information provided by ancient composers such as Homer and Sappho give us a lively impression. But can we take these works of literature as accurate representations of society? Even if we forget about the quarrelling, war-loving, suspiciously human-like gods? These are the kinds of questions that are addressed in this course.
With the focus on gender and debates as an important component for the assessment, this is a perfect example of a liberal arts course that ties in multiple disciplines. Next to that, the enthusiastic and energetic teaching of Dr. Hochscheid makes this course even more interesting. As a literature major, I have taken this course out of interest for literary works. My only knowledge of ancient times stems from the two years in high school when I took Greek and Latin, and I have pretty much forgotten all about that. Although this class does require an effort to look a little more into ancient history, it does not matter if you do not have any knowledge about it as it is very well possible to take A&H 205 without having done other courses in the classics track.
Lonneke de Klerk (class of 2015) is a Linguistics and Literature major from Middelburg, the Netherlands
