Epic into Novel, 2023-2024

 

Reading List – Texts for Study

 

Texts marked with an asterisk * will be provided to students in the English Department:

 

* Anon, The Epic of Gilgamesh, trs. Andrew George (Penguin Classics, 2002).

 

Anon., Beowulf, trs. Seamus Heaney (London: Faber, 2000).

 

Anon., Beowulf, trs. Maria Dahvana Headley, (Scribe UK, 2021).

 

Atwood, Margaret, The Penelopiad (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2018).

 

* Greenblatt, Stephen, general editor, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th ed Vol B - 16th/Early 17th Century - this is the same anthology students will be using or have used for Medieval and Early Modern Literature.

 

Headley, Maria Dahvana, The Mere Wife (Scribe UK, 2019).

 

* Homer, The Iliad, trs. Caroline Alexander (London: Vintage, 2015).

 

* Homer, The Odyssey, trs. Emily Wilson (New York and London: Norton, 2018)

 

Kālidāsa, The Recognition of Śakuntalā, (Oxford World’s Classics edition, trs. W. J. Johnson, 2008).

 

Niane, D. T., Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Longman African Writers series, 2^nd ed., 2006).

* Vergil, The Aeneid, trs. Shadi Bartsch (London: Profile Books, 2020)

 

 

Weekly outline:

 

# Short texts, digital copies to be supplied.

 

Term 1, Week 1

 

Anon, The Epic of Gilgamesh, trs. Andrew George (Penguin Classics, 2002).

 

Term 1, Week 2

 

Homer, The Iliad, trs. Caroline Alexander (London: Vintage, 2015), extracts.

[Books 1, 3, 6, 9, 10 entire; Book 12, ll. 290-330 (Sarpedon and Glaucus); Book 16 entire; Book 18, ll. 410-618 (the Shield of Achilles); Books 22, 23, 24 entire]

 

Term 1, Week 3

 

Homer, The Odyssey, trs. Emily Wilson (New York and London: Norton, 2018)

Books 1-8

 

Term 1, Week 4

Homer, The Odyssey, trs. Emily Wilson

Books 9-16

 

Term 1, Week 5

Homer, The Odyssey, trs. Emily Wilson

Books 17-24

 

Term 1, Week 6

Reading Week

 

Term 1, Week 7

Ancient responses to Homer

 

# Anon., Batrachomyomachia (The Battle of the Frogs and the Mice), trs. Thomas Parnell, as “Homer’s Batrachomuomachia: Or, The Battell of the Frogs and the Mice”, in Poems on several occasions. Written by Dr. Thomas Parnell, Late Arch-Deacon of Clogher: and published by Mr. Pope (London: B.Lintott, 1722 [1722]), pp.68-104. Available on ECCO: Poems on several occasions. Written by Dr. Thomas Parnell, Late Arch-Deacon of Clogher: and published by Mr. Pope - Document - Eighteenth Century Collections Online (gale.com)

 

# Anon., Priapea 68, in W. H. Parker, trs. and ed., Priapea: Poems for a Phallic God (London and Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988), pp. 174-179.

 

# Catullus 64, in Jeannine Diddle Uzzi and Jeffrey Thomson, trs., The Poems of Catullus: An Annotated Translation (Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp. 105-118 (and notes, pp. 199-203). NB: eBook available via Warwick library catalogue.

 

Term 1, Week 8
Vergil, The Aeneid, trs. Shadi Bartsch (London: Profile Books, 2020)

Books 1-4

 

Term 1, Week 9
Vergil, The Aeneid, trs. Shadi Bartsch (London: Profile Books, 2020)

Books 5-8

 

Term 1, Week 10
Vergil, The Aeneid, trs. Shadi Bartsch (London: Profile Books, 2020)

Books 9-12

 

Term 2, Week 1

Milton, Paradise Lost, Books 1-4.

This is included in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 10th ed Vol B - 16th/Early 17th Century - this is the same anthology students will be using or have used for Medieval and Early Modern Literature)

 

Term 2, Week 2

Milton, Paradise Lost, Books 5-8

 

Term 2, Week 3

Milton, Paradise Lost, Books 9-12.

Term 2, Week 4

D. T. Niane, Sundiata: An Epic of Old Mali (Longman African Writers series, 2^nd ed., 2006)

 

Term 2, Week 5

Kālidāsa, The Recognition of Śakuntalā, (Oxford World’s Classics edition, trs. W. J. Johnson, 2008)

 

Term 2, Week 6

Reading Week

 

Term 2, Week 7

# Sir William Jones, episode from the Shahnameh

# Matthew Arnold, Sohrab and Rustum, in Kenneth Allott, ed., The Poems of Matthew Arnold (Longman Annotated English Poets; London: Longmans, 1965), pp. 302-331.

 

Term 2, Week 8

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Lotos Eaters" -- available at https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45364/the-lotos-eaters

# Tennyson, Ulysses

# Tennyson, “To Virgil”.

# William Johnson Cory, “Calypso”.

Term 2, Week 9

Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2018).

 

Term 2, Week 10

Anon., Beowulf, trs. Seamus Heaney (London: Faber, 2000).

 

Term 3, Week 1

Anon., Beowulf, trs. Maria Dahvana Headley, (Scribe UK, 2021).

 

Term 3, Week 2,

Maria Dahvana Headley, The Mere Wife (Scribe UK, 2019)

 

Term 3, Week 3

Module Review and Essay Writing