The Harris and Platzner text has an extensive website, with chapter summaries, etc., along with extensive links to material which is available on the web.
This leads to information and links in connection with the Jan. 8 and 10 lectures.
This leads to links concerning the music which was originally associated with the performance of much Greek literature
This leads to information and links concerning Pindar .
Besides the George Thomson translation of Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, used by Harris and Platzner, quite a few other translations are available. One important variation which Thomson introduces in his translation is that he consistently omits mention of Themis as the name of Prometheus' mother.
This leads to information concerning the terms strophe and antistrophe .
Class lecture, Jan. 24 dealt mainly with various ways of categorizing a translation, as literal or free, prosaic or poetic, etc.
This leads to information concerning theories of Homeric interpretation. Note that besides the readings from the Iliad listed on the syllabus, you should also read part of Book 3 in Rouse, from near top of p. 42 ("Priam was sitting ...") to near top of p. 44 (" ... their own native land.")
Supplementing Iliad, Book 3, there are important treatments of the Dioscuri ("sons of Zeus", Castor and Polydeuces) in Homer, Odyssey and Pindar, Nemean 10.
A kothon (vessel for oil or perfume) from about 570 BCE in the Louvre Museum, Paris will be discussed in class. Information concerning this kothon and related material from H & P is available from the Perseus Project.
Another important artistic representation of a mythological scene is the contest between Athena and Poseidon, on the west pediment of the Parthenon.
For information and texts concerning Sappho (c. 600 BCE), see copyrighted translations by Andrew Miller (Pitt Classics Department). From this site, you should read Miller's sels. 1. (Fr. 1), 2. (Fr. 16), and 8. (Fr.44).
This leads to information concerning Nonnos. Note that, because of time constaints, Nonnos will not be explicitly covered in the final exam.
An important point in the study of classical mythology, well developed by H & P, pp. 19-20, is the importance of humanism in Greek thought.
As discussed in class, a mythologically important Greek word is dinos, translated by Meineck as "Basin" in his translation of Aristophanes, Clouds.
An important element associated with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is the Riddle of the Sphinx. (For this, cf. also H & P, pp. 693-694.
Many scholars believe that Sophocles' reference in Oedipus Rex to a plague at Thebes was an allusion to the plague which had recently been raging at Athens. Thucydides is our principal source of information concerning this plague.
At various points in Sophocles' Antigone, Antigone presents her reasons for burying Polyneices. One such passage has sometimes been regarded as spurious, and it omitted from Fitts and Fitzgerald's translation, which H & P use.
Although it may now seem somewhat old-fashioned, Dryden's translation of the Aeneid, which is available on line from a variety of sources, probably captures the effect of the original better than many more recent translations. In particular, Dryden's opening phrase "Arms, and the man I sing", is an effective rendering of Vergil's "Arma virumque cano".
H & P, p. 982 briefly mention Vergil, Eclogue 4 as an important part of the background for the interest which medieval Christian readers and authors such as Dante (cf. H & P, pp. 1006-1008) showed in Vergil. The complete text of Eclogue 4 in MacKail's translation is available on line.