SPRING 1996
--RESEARCH WITH Perseus is strongly recommended yet optional.
Technophobes may work exclusively with books, as long as they use the ancient authors (in translation). You may combine both methods. See me for help with your research
--See GUIDELINES ON STYLE in the "Course Binder" (Reserve Desk, Library)
--You are not expected to use any secondary bibliography. This paper can be written on the basis of the materials you find in Perseus or in the ancient texts you analyze.
--Remember that this course focuses on mythmaking, on the construction, in myth and ritual, of groups marked as marginal, inferior, alien.
--Don't be afraid to express your opinions. Compare and contrast your materials, place them, if possible, within a context, and then consider them critically.
THE HOMERIC HYMN TO DEMETER: Mythmaking of Gender and Authority
This text is available on Perseus 2.0, with useful links. I have placed on reserve in the library the translation by A. Athanassakis, A. Hymn 2 is The Homeric Hymn to Demeter [HENCEFORTH HHD]. The translator's notes may be useful, yet you needn't repeat his opinions.
Possible issues to focus on (pick as many as you wish)
1) Separation crisis, for the maiden and for the mother. What other crises occur in the HDD? The scene of the abduction of Kore/Persephone offers a typical vision of a girl's initiation. In parallel poetic descriptions maidens gather flowers in a group (a chorus) in beautiful natural landscapes. You will find parallels in the myths of Artemis (who is a virgin herself, and a goddess of initiation). Some of the flowers mentioned in the HDD are associated with eros, others, in later poetry, with the death of virgin adolescents of both genders. See if you find other suggestions of death, mourning, or the underworld, in the HDD .
2) Hekate was later identified both with Demeter and Persephone; also with the moon, and Persephone herself was identified in later texts with the moon. What is Hekate's role in the HDD?
3) Compare the abduction of Persephone with the abduction of Demeter in her
fictional story about herself. How do you understand the reference to
eating the food offered in each case?
4) Zeus's choice of a bridegroom for Persephone. How does it relate to Greek traditional customs ? Authority of the father/husband.
5) The wiles of Zeus, Hades, and Demeter. How does Demeter defy the gods?
How does she express her anger and why would depriving mankind of food affect the gods too? What are the implications of immortalizing an infant boy? Do you think this is as dangerous as the production of Typhaon by Gaia or (in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo) by Hera, or the attempt by Thetis to immortalize Achilles?
6) The Wages of Compromise
The role of Rheia in fulfilling Zeus's order What does Demeter receive in exchange for her obedience? What structure in human society does this arrangement legitimize?
7) Order Reestablished: Rituals and Heroes
What advantages does the myth about the foundation of the Mysteries entail for Eleusis? Whose rights does it justify? (Read about the Eleusinian rituals in Morford and Lenardon or in other sources; there is a summary in the Course Binder, at the Reserves desk in the library).
8) Eleusinian Myth and Ritual
You may want to compare the rituals at Eleusis with the story of the HDD, and comment on the hopes of those who underwent the Eleusinian collective initiation. How inclusive were the rituals of Demeter? Can you discover an element of marginality in the description of the rituals?
9) Fertility in the HDD
What aspects of this hymn relate to fertility? Does this concept apply to the fertility of the fields or to human procreation?
10) Battle of the Genders.
An overview of the HDD. Who wins the battle of the genders?
A couple of more challenging questions:
11) Desire and the Maiden
Can you detect in the HDD an expression of erotic desire on the part of the maiden who is ready for marriage?
12) Order in the Cosmos
What implications does the marriage of Persephone to Hades have for the order of the universe as a whole? Could these consequences have been part of Zeus's initial intent? Also, how would you qualify the final positioning of mankind with respect to the gods of Olympus and those of the underworld (chthonic)?
You may choose any number of the following issues and either include them in one paper with a combined focus and conclusion, or pick out one of them, research it in depth and draw conclusions on that issue alone. I recommend reading Cartledge's Ch. 6, On Inhuman Bondage. Yet your paper cannot be based on his information alone and should not be a repetition of Cartledge's opinions. You will find many ancient sources, of course, in Perseus 2.0, as well as in Wiedemann, T. Greek and Roman Slavery. (on Library Reserve).
1) On slavery as a historical fact and its conditions and circumstances.
Sources: Perseus 2.0,T. Martin, Overview.
Alternatively, use Wiedemann as a source. Choose any concepts and citations, but place them in their historical context, that is, e.g. don't mingle pre-classical evidence with writings of late antiquity or Graeco-Roman times. You may use them, but indicate time lapses if they are significant. There is an Index of passages that gives dates for all the authors, if known.
Xenophon, Hellenica. 2.3.36, 3.3.4-11, 7.3.8, and many other texts, easy to identify with Perseus or with Wiedemann, illustrate the manner of acquisition of slaves, their treatment, and other historical aspects of slavery in ancient Greece. Consider also other groups "between free men and slaves" (see Cartledge) in ancient Greece.
2) On the ideology of slavery and the equivalent of "racism"
a) Read Iliad, Book 2, lines 211-278 and consider the description of Thersites and the treatment he receives in this episode. Thersites is the only character in the Iliad who is neither an aristocrat (like the audience of this epic) nor a slave or servant, but a common man who dares voice his opinion in disagreement with the leaders.
b) (See Cartledge p 128ff) Consider the notion that manual work weakens the body and therefore the mind. Compare Plato, Republic , Book 2.369bc-371e, and Book 3.412b-415d. On the character of the slave: without honor, shame, or anything healthy: Plato, Laws 776e; Demosthenes 8.51 and 10.27.
c) On the ideology of "natural slaves," that is, those born inferior and destined to serve. See Aristotle, Politics 1253b-1255b.30 and other passages in Book 1. The slave: an andrapodon ("man-footed thing"). Barbarians as slaves. Women and slaves: Thucydides 3.73-74.
d) Consider, among other literary sources, Aeschylus, Persians 355 (with Herodotus 8.75.1), Aristophanes, The Frogs 190, or the orators, e.g. Isocrates 12.214.
A couple of more challenging topics:
3) Compare Plato, Republic 547bc (the divisions of the ideal city) with Hesiod's Myth of the Ages.
4) Read Thucydides, Book 2. 36ff. (the Funeral Oration he puts in the mouth of Pericles), and consider the description of the perfect democracy, Athens, in relation to the two focuses of this course.