This course is an introduction to Ancient Greek as spoken and read in 5th-4th cent. BCE Athens, its core vocabulary, grammar and syntax. After taking this course and its companion, CLG 102, you will be ready to enroll in courses reading Plato and Homer. Our work this term will focus on Greek as a literary language, but also open a window onto the dynamic cultural, social and political world in which our authors lived and wrote.

This course aims to improve students' proficiency in Classical Greek prose, expanding vocabulary and honing grammar and syntax, while simultaneously becoming acquainted with Plato's unique style of philosophic exposition in the account of Socrates' Apology.

We will be reading Euripides' Hippolytus carefully in Ancient Greek, alongside ancient and modern works treating the story of Hippolytus and Phaedra. The myth and Euripides' play raise questions of gender, sexuality, identity, theology, and politics, and we will investigate these themes both in the context of fifth-century Athens and in later ages that have responded to the story (including our own). Students will complete final projects examining another version, adaptation, or performance, and the course will include film viewings and/or theater visits to the extent possible.

Plato's negative views on poetry are notorious. They are also puzzling, given Plato's own careful attention to style in the genre of philosophical dialogue. We will delve into both what Plato says about poetry - or seems to say, via his characters - and what he does with words, by closely reading the short dialogue Ion and excerpts from the Republic in Greek. We will consider Plato's critiques of the Homeric rhapsode and Attic tragedy in the context of these dominant forms of cultural production in Athens and Plato's larger truth-seeking project. With Plato, we will ask: what role does art have in our encounter with reality?