Paper Topics | Fall 2024 | Paper 3
Due Saturday, November 16, 5:00 p.m., to your conference leader
Target length: 1,400-1,600 words
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- the Parthenon (pick two metopes)
- Persepolis (inscriptions, sculptures, and/or architectural spaces)
- Achaemenid era inscriptions (pick one)
- Herodotus’s Histories (pick one section, for instance Book 2.28-64)
- the Book of Esther.
How does the text/work of art define and create difference? How is that significant to the agenda of the work as a whole
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2. Both Sappho (4, Miller) and Herodotus (1.1-5, 2.113-20) reference Helen. Choose either Sappho or Herodotus and discuss how and why the author’s portrayal of Helen differs from her depiction in the Iliad (consider Book 3; Book 6. 342-358 and Book 24.760-775). How do their references to Helen articulate their different concerns and values? Consider how the genre of the texts relates to those differences.
3. The Kroisos statue inscription reads: “Stay and mourn at the monument for dead Kroisos / Whom raging Ares once destroyed, fighting in the vanguard.” Compare the ways in which death is commemorated in the statue and in a passage of your choosing from the Iliad. Pay particular attention to the concept of kleos (immortality or eternal fame) discussed in Ann Delehanty’s lecture (October 9) and Jenny Sakai’s lecture (October 18). (With regards to the Kroisos statue, make sure you address the visual/formal elements, as well as the inscription.
4. At the beginning of his work, Herodotus mentions two of his main goals: “to show why the two peoples fought with each other” and to remember “great and marvelous deeds” of “Greeks” and “barbarians” (Book 1.1). Focusing on one episode from the Histories, discuss how he goes about achieving these goals. Do you see any tension between them? If so, how does he accommodate it?
5. Choose an extended simile from the Iliad. How does it complicate, clarify or contradict what is being described? What is its significance in relation to the work as a whole?