Postgraduate Course: Ancient Reading Practices and Literary Criticism (PGHC11649)
Course Outline
| School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course traces reading practices in antiquity from Archaic Greece to Imperial Rome. It focuses on the changing roles, habits and judgements of ancient audiences and in turn how these affected the production of literary works. The course will challenge our own sense of what we are doing when we engage with literature. |
| Course description |
How did ancient audiences engage with their literature, whether as texts or performances? What did they think they were doing as viewers or readers? How did they judge the value of their literature and from where do the criteria arise? And, how and why did these criteria change over time?
In this course, we will pursue those questions across a kaleidoscopic range of Greek and Roman texts (in translation) that explicitly addressed the reception and valuation of literary works as well as the diverse functions that they thought or hoped 'literature' might play in their lives. The work across the seminars will involve us situating various reading practices and forms of criticism both within their historical contexts and - as the weeks progress - within an ever-evolving Graeco-Roman liiterary culture. This course will be essential for anyone seeking to analyse ancient literature as part of their Masters study and will provide them with the tools to interrogate their own hermeneutic habits.
|
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should usually have at least 3 courses in Classics related subject matter (at least 2 of which should be in Ancient History) at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this) for entry to this course. We will only consider University/College level courses.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
|
| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
|
Quota: 0 |
| Course Start |
Semester 2 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
|
| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
|
| Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
1,500 word book review (30%)
3,500 word piece of coursework (70%) |
| Feedback |
Students are expected to discuss their coursework with the Course Organiser at least once prior to submission, and are encouraged to do so more often. Meetings can take place with the Course Organiser during their published office hours or by appointment. Students will also receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- analyse a wide range of primary texts, placing them in their proper literary and historical context
- reflect critically on the set text(s) and the modern debate on the text(s), showing their ability to take an independent and well-argued stance
- show in research-led, argument-driven coursework their ability to conduct a sustained individual enquiry into a particular aspect of the topic
- engage in active scholarly debate with their peers and express their arguments in written form
|
Reading List
van den Berg, C.S. (2014) The World of Tacitus' Dialogus de Oratoribus: Aesthetics and Empire in Ancient Rome (Cambridge).
van den Berg, C.S. (2023) The Politics and Poetics of Cicero's Brutus: The Invention of Literary History (Cambridge).
Boys-Stones, G.R. (ed.) (2003) Metaphor, Allegory, and the Classical Tradition: Ancient Thought and Modern Revisions (Oxford).
Fedeli, G. and Spelman, H.L. (eds) (2024) Writing Literary History in the Greek and Roman World (Cambridge).
Ferenczi, A. and Hardie, P.R. (eds) (2014) New Approaches to Horace's Ars Poetica (Materiali e discussioni per l'analisi dei testi classici 72) (Pisa).
Grethlein, J. (2021) The Ancient Aesthetics of Deception: The Ethics of Enchantment from Gorgias to Heliodorus (Cambridge).
Ingleheart, J. (2010) A Commentary on Ovid, Tristia, Book 2 (Oxford).
Laird, A. (ed.) (2006) Oxford Readings in Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford).
Nünlist, R. (2009) The Ancient Critic at Work: Terms and Concepts of Literary Criticism in Greek Scholia (Cambridge).
Porter, J.I. (2015) The Sublime in Antiquity (Cambridge).
Russell, D.A. and Winterbottom, M. (2003) Ancient Literary Criticism: The Principal Texts in New Translations (Oxford).
Too, Y.L. (1998) The Idea of Ancient Literary Criticism (Oxford). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Teaching and learning activities:
Seminar readings and discussions about a wide range of texts from different historical periods and cultural contexts will surface the skills of critical thinking, problem solving, curiosity, communication, reflection and inclusivity. Organising the material as the course progresses and developing means of putting the range of evidence in dialogue will surface data literacy. The demanding range of texts covered will push students to be adaptive. The same skills will also be assessed in the summative work.
The learning outcomes are the result of the teaching, learning and assessment of the above skills for success. In addition, the course will embed individuality, which will be developed as students discuss their work with the course organiser in seminars and feedback sessions. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Max Leventhal
Tel:
Email: mleventh@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
|
|
University Homepage