We will study a selection of contemporary versions of the story of the Trojan War in film, poetry and fiction, paying particular attention to the depiction of the figure of Achilles and of the female characters with reference to their ancient sources (e.g. Homer’s Iliad, Euripides, Hecuba and Trojan Women). Texts to be studied include extracts from Pat Barker, The Silence of the Girls, Nathalie Haynes, A Thousand Ships, Christopher Logue, War Music, Alice Oswald, Memorial and Elizabeth Cook, Achilles. We will also study extracts from the film Troy (dir. Petersen 2004) and the series Troy: Fall of a City (2018).
Questions for the course include: Which aspects of the ancient sources are kept by modern writers and which are modified? How do the modern versions treat figures, like the Trojan women, who play a minor role in the Iliad and how do they relate to modern preoccupations? What do the answers to these questions tell us about ancient and modern conceptions of heroes and the heroic?
- Enseignant: Ruth Webb