Introductory description

Building on my 2025 book, Figuring Death in Classical Athens: Visual and Literary Explorations (OUP), this module explores the ways in which art and literature helped ancient Greeks grapple with the uncertainties of death. How did objects and texts generate emotions towards and reflections upon what death is and might be like? Were their audiences aware of the imaginative frameworks that underpinned their thinking? Did they worry not just about death, but whether they could figure it out?

The material covered is wide ranging, pulling together texts and objects (including e.g. philosophy, drinking cups, drama, temple sculpture, and history). Classical Athens is the focus, but there will be opportunities throughout the module to explore earlier material as well as its legacy in ancient Rome and beyond.

One theme permeating the course is the tension between universality (how far might experience of death transcend culture/historical moment?) and particularity. The topic of death brings us closer than ever to the ancient world and invites us to reflect not just upon an ancient culture, but our own.

Other themes include:

• Encounters with art/literature: How do art and text involve their audiences in processes of thought? How do they generate thinking and ideas as agents in the world (rather than simply reflecting the world…)? How do form and content work together?
• Distance/Exteriority: How can the living know what dying might be like?
• Particularity: Can one person's experience hold for another? Is death truly a 'leveller'? How far is death ‘the great constant’?
• Virtuality: What can a virtual experience—namely, the sort of realistic but unreal experience that is offered by art or literature—offer?

This module is also available to undergraduates from other departments, subject to the agreement of the Classics Department and their home department.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Primary Texts to be studied in translation:
All students are generally encouraged to read in translation the wider plays/books from which the following extracts come and/or some comparative material (as indicated in square brackets). The translations are all taken from the most recent Loeb editions.
Homer, Iliad 16.419–683 [Iliad 16, Bacchylides Ode 5];
Homer, Iliad 24.602–18 [Iliad 24];
Anacreon fr. 395;
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 218–57, 1372–406 [Aeschylus, Agamemnon];
Sophocles, Antigone 806–943 [Sophocles, Antigone];
Sophocles, Niobe fr. 441a;
Sophocles, Oedipus the King 167–88 [Sophocles, Oedipus the King];
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1456–1779 [Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus];
Euripides, Alcestis 1–434 [Euripides, Alcestis];
Euripides, Trojan Women 1156–332 [Euripides, Trojan Women];
Aristophanes, Frogs;
Thucydides, History 2.34–54 [Book 2];
Plato, Phaedo 111c4–118a [Plato, Phaedo];
Plato, Republic 10.613e4–10.615b7 [Republic 10];
Quintus of Smyrna, The Fall of Troy 1.891–922 [Book 1];

Primary Texts, Original Greek (for Q800/Q801):
Knowledge of all the above in translation, plus specific knowledge of the following in the original
Greek. The Greek text used will be the OCT unless otherwise indicated below.
Homer, Iliad 16.419–683;
Homer, Iliad 24.602–18;
Anacreon fr. 395 (text: Campbell, LCL 143, 'Greek Lyric II');
Aeschylus, Agamemnon 218–57, 1372–406;
Sophocles, Antigone 806–943;
Sophocles, Niobe fr. 441a (text: Lloyd-Jones, LCL 483, 'Sophocles Fragments');
Sophocles, Oedipus the King 167–88;
Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1456–1779;
Euripides, Alcestis 1–434;
Euripides, Trojan Women 1156–332;
Thucydides, History 2.34–54;
Plato, Phaedo 111c4–118a;
Plato, Republic 10.613e4–10.615b7;
Quintus of Smyrna, The Fall of Troy 1.891–922 (text: Hopkinson, LCL 19, 'Posthomerica')

Indicative outline of lectures:
TERM 1 .
LECTURES 1–5: SKILL DEVELOPMENT IN METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTION AND VISUAL AND LITERARY ANALYSIS.
Week 1. Introduction: hello from the other side (including e.g. Plato's myth of Er; Euripides' Alcestis; Aigina warriors).
Week 2. Deaths old and new (including e.g. Mykonos pithos; deaths in the Iliad; Bacchylides 5; Sarpedon in art and text).
Week 3. Whose eyes? Ways of approaching ancient art and text.
Week 4. Literary analysis.
Week 5. Visual analysis.
Week 6. READING WEEK - NO LECTURES .
LECTURES 7–10: EXEMPLARY DEATH / HEROIC DEATH.
Week 7. Death in the symposium (including e.g. drinking cups and mixing bowls; Anacreon fr. 395).
Week 8. Death in the theatre (including e.g. Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus; Euripides' Trojan Women; Aristophanes' Frogs).
Week 9. Death on the Acropolis (including e.g. temple of Athena Nike; Parthenon; Alcamenes' Procne and Itys).
Week 10. Death in philosophy (including e.g. Plato's Phaedo; Plato's Republic).

TERM 2 .
LECTURES 1–5: MOURNING, GROUP DEATH, REMEMBRANCE, EMPATHY.
Week 1. Kerameikos / private death (focus on lekythoi).
Week 2. State funeral / public death (including e.g. funeral speech; casualty lists; funerary stelai).
Week 3. Historiography of death (including e.g. Thucydides on the plague; mythological and real sickness and mass death in art and text).
Week 4. Materiality of death (including e.g. Sophocles on Niobe and Antigone; funerary stelai).
Week 5. Laughing at death (including e.g. Aristophanes' Frogs, Euripides' Alcestis, Plato's Phaedo; Roman sarcophagi).
Week 6. READING WEEK - NO LECTURES.
LECTURES 7–9: RECEPTION / LEGACY OF GREEK ART OF DEATH. LECTURE 10: PLANNING / WRITING A SYNOPTIC ESSAY OR PROJECT.
Week 7. Death and desire (including e.g. Iphigenia; Polyxena; Achilles and Penthesilea).
Week 8. The ongoing moment of death (including e.g. Alcestis and the deathbed scene).
Week 9. Vanitas and beyond (including e.g. Vanitas, death in VR, and AI death; ancient–modern in dialogue).
Week 10. Writing a synoptic essay / project design.

TERM 3.
WEEKS 1–3: PEER / LECTURER SUPPORT WITH ESSAYS / PROJECTS.
Week 1. Essay / project support.
Week 2. Essay / project support.
Week 3. Essay / project support.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Recognise, identify and describe a range of ancient visual and literary culture (including sculpture, painting, drama, hexameter, historiography, philosophy, and lyric poetry).
• Carry out thorough and creative analysis of visual and literary culture, exploring the relations each enter into with their audiences and the thinking they generate.
• Understand and articulate some different ways in which readers and viewers have approached and might approach ancient art and text, including some influential ancient literary reflections.
• Appreciate the enduring influence of Greek art over western art and norms in antiquity and beyond.
• Take more risks by sharing a personal response to ancient material or a point of view.
• Carry out independent work on a chosen topic, including independent reading, and present the work clearly.
• Develop the ability to set their findings into a wider comparative context, drawing in other aspects of the study of the ancient world.
• Engage creatively with a wider range of secondary literature that includes discussion of classical art and literature within broader comparative, including critical-theoretical, frames.
• Q800/801 students and students taking an ancient text option will be able to: • Read literature in the original language with greater confidence and fluency. • Analyse and respond to ancient literature with reference to the original language (for instance by commenting on word choice and placement).

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Interdisciplinary

The module cuts across sub-disciplinary boundaries by incorporating literary and visual culture. This (1) builds bridges between different areas and methods of classical study; (2) enables students to put ancient written theories of art in dialogue with modern ways of thinking; and (3) raises theoretical questions surrounding the difference between words and pictures.

Subject specific skills

By the end of this module all students should expect to have:

• developed a broad understanding of a variety of a range of ancient visual and literary culture and its relevance for a range of issues pertinent to Classical study, including ancient socio-cultural significance and contributions to broader debates in critical theory and classical reception;
• honed skills in visual and literary analysis;
• developed an ability to think creatively about the relationship between form and content, including the contribution made by medium;
• developed an understanding of a range of ways of approaching ancient material, including approaches centred on, among others, ancient viewers, audiences, and readers, and an ability to reflect critically upon different (modern and ancient) ways of approaching ancient art and text, including their own methodology and approach;
• developed an ability to consider ancient art and text within a wider comparative context, drawing in other aspects of the study of the ancient world;
• engaged creatively with a range of secondary literature that includes discussion of ancient art and text and/or sets it within broader comparative and critical-theoretical frames;
• developed an appreciation of the enduring legacy of Greek art and literature over western art and norms in antiquity and beyond.

Transferable skills

• Communication
• Information Literacy
• Critical Thinking
• Creativity
• Risk taking