Modules

The Ancient Greek Novel (CLA3259)

15 credits

Do you love tales of romance and adventure? Desperate and beautiful heroines, swashbuckling heroes, dastardly pirates, conniving femmes fatales – and goats? The ancient Greek novels offer it all: thrilling entertainment, hermeneutic challenge, titillation, redemption – and much more besides. Umberto Eco describes the novel as ‘a machine for generating interpretation’, and these texts speak deeply to us of human experience: of sexuality and gender, of the character and transformation, of identity, art, fiction and salvation. If you believe literature has something important to say to us – if you love getting lost in the world of interpretation – then this may be the module for you.

There are no formal prerequisites for this module, but imagination, intrepid curiosity and a commitment to the transformative power of fiction (and love) are a must.