Admission requirements
A BA degree in Classics, obtained from a university in the Netherlands, or a comparable qualification obtained from a university outside the Netherlands. If you are interested in taking this course, but are not sure whether you fulfil the entry requirements, please contact the instructor. Instruction and reading materials will be in English.
Description
This course addresses passages from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Petronius' Satyricon and Augustine's Confessions from the perspective of T. S. Eliot's receptions of these texts in his seminal poem The Waste Land from 1922. Interest in this ground-breaking modernist poem has been further increased by its centennial in 2022, marked by theatre performances around the world, including by the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. This always relevant and hopeful poem is particularly important for our current age given the similarities between the present climate crisis, renewed warfare in and around Europe, and the political turmoil in many western countries on the one hand and the years after the first world war on the other, when Eliot and many others experienced the world as 'waste' or desolate and destroyed. The Waste Land confronts us with a fragmentary world scarred by loss and darkness, yet the poem’s ending holds out a profound sense of hope.
This course will address Eliot's profound use of intertextuality and his understanding of the Latin intertexts as part of a whole range of multilingual intertexts, as well as our present-day understanding of these Latin texts. Students are required to read, study, and translate passages of Latin and to discuss their relation with and their interconnectedness in Eliot's poem. This also requires the study of concepts such as 'tradition', 'reception', and 'the classical', and different scholarly approaches to and perspectives on Greco-Roman reception, and in particular in relation to British modernism. Students will be introduced to the cento, a poem that shares compositional techniques with The Waste Land through its patchwork arrangement of quotations of fragments from older literature, before going on to create their own cento.
For information on teaching materials, see ‘Reading List’ below.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, students will be able to…
discuss important concepts of Greco-Roman reception [WRITTEN COMMUNICATION][ORAL COMMUNICATION] [PRESENTING]
apply different methodologies and approaches of Greco-Roman reception studies to T. S. Eliot’s engagement with classical texts in The Waste Land [RESEARCH] [ANALYSING] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
evaluate the significance of the reception of Greco-Roman texts in The Waste Land [RESEARCH] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
analyse themes shared by The Waste Land and the Classical texts which influence it [ANALYSING] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
critically assess T. S. Eliot’s recontextualisations of Ovid, Augustine and Petronius in relation to traditional interpretations of these authors and their works [ANALYSING] [REFLECTING] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
produce their own original cento poem which demonstrates their understanding of the cento technique [PROJECT-BASED WORKING] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
create polished and nuanced translations of selected passages of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Petronius’ Satyricon and Augustine’s Confessions [WRITTEN COMMUNICATION] [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
analyse the grammatical and linguistic features of selected passages of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Petronius’ Satyricon and Augustine’s Confessions [INDEPENDENT LEARNING]
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
Written examination consisting of several seen translations from the proscribed corpus of texts and passages, one unseen translation of a passage from the set authors, and grammatical and linguistic questions on the proscribed corpus of texts and passages and short open questions and an essay question on the topics covered in the course (25%) [= Written examination with closed questions, short open questions and essay questions]
Oral presentation (10%)
Creation of an original cento poem (10%) [= Take home assignment]
3000-word paper (55%)
After the first introductory classes students give brief presentations in class about aspects of the Latin texts in relation to The Waste Land or other relevant modernist texts. Each Latin author (Augustine, Ovid, Petronius) is also addressed with a 250-word reflection which will be written at the conclusion of three of the classes through the course. These assignments are intended as preparation for a reflective essay that will form part of the exam. The first three assignments (those completed in class) will receive formative feedback and the fourth one (completed as part of the written examination) will be marked. Students will also create a modern 'cento' poem inspired by The Waste Land. The course is concluded with a written exam, requiring students to translate passages from the Latin texts, and to translate one unseen passage of Augustine from outside the corpus, to answer questions on the set texts and T. S. Eliot's receptions of these texts in The Waste Land, and to provide a reflective text which they have prepared for through their in-class reflections. After the course, students hand in a 3000-word paper dealing with issues of classical receptions in The Waste Land or within the Latin texts themselves.
Weighing
The final mark for the course is established by (i) determination of the weighted average combined with (ii) additional requirements: a minimum of a 6.0 for the final paper.
Resit
In the event that the paper is judged unsatisfactory, a second improved version will have to be submitted, in consultation with the lecturers.
The written examination, the oral presentation and the cento poem can be resat if necessary.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
- Latin texts to be read in the original
a) Augustine, Confessions 3
b) Ovid’s Metamorphoses:
3.322-350 + 511-26 (Tiresias)
6.412-674 (Procne and Philomela)
14.101-153 (Cumaean Sibyl)
c) Pervigilium Veneris
d) Petronius, Satyricon, 31-52 (part of the Cena Trimalchionis)
Paper copies of all texts will be distributed in class and electronic versions of texts and necessary commentaries will be available on Brightspace. The editions which will be used in class and which will form the basis for the written examination are:
Augustine:
O’Donnell, James J. (1992). Augustine: Confessions, Oxford: Clarendon (3 volumes). [Introduction, text and commentary]. Online version.
Ovid:
Tarrant, R. J. ed. (2004). P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses. Oxford: Clarendon.
Pervigilium Veneris:
Barton, William M. (2018). The Pervigilium Veneris. A New Critical Text, Translation and Commentary. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Petronius:
Smith, Martin S. (1975). Petronii Arbitri Cena Trimalchionis. Oxford: Clarendon. (On archive.org)
Greek and Latin texts to be read in translation
Od. 11.1-151
Ovid, Met. 3.351-510 + 527-731
Augustine, conf. 10
Virg. Aen. passages from 1, 4 and 6T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922.
T. S. Eliot (1963), Collected Poems 1909-1962, London: Faber and Faber.
A downloaded version of Michael North, ed. (2001), T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. A Norton Critical Edition, New York and London: Norton. The Waste Land - Norton Critical Edition
Students should ideally prepare as much as possible of the material listed above before the course begins, as the more that is prepared in advance the more the classes will be of benefit, but at an absolute minimum should have read:
T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land, 1922. To help your reading, you may enjoy these performances of the full poem by Alec Guinness and Fiona Shaw.
The set corpus of texts (listed under ‘1. Latin texts to be read in the original’ above) in translation.
A reading list with further secondary literature will be distributed via Brightspace in advance of the class.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Registration À la carte education, Contract teaching and Exchange
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of À la carte education (without taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
Information for those interested in taking this course in context of Contract teaching (with taking examinations), eg. about costs, registration and conditions.
For the registration of exchange students contact Humanities International Office.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal
Remarks
Students are expected to attend the classes regularly, to be fully prepared, and to participate actively in discussions.