Greek and Latin Cultures

Recommended Prerequisites

Not applicable.

Teaching Methods

Seminar. Introductory and conclusive syntheses presented by the teacher. Regular discussion of syntheses on different subjects presented by the students.

Learning Outcomes

The main learning outcome consists in endowing the students with the ability to understand the specific nature of the Greek and Roman experience of eros and "amor", expressed in lyric, as well as the way a number of metaphors were recovered in later western lyric. At the end of the seminar, students should be able to:

- fit this experience and expression of eros and "amor" in its cultural context;

- perceive how Antiquity understood philia/amicitia in its personal and political dimmension;

- understand how Greek philosophy develops the themes of eros and philia, contextualized by Plato in its metaphysical dimension, with a view to understanding Augustine's Neoplatonism;

- to win a perspective about the roots of future erotic poetic expression, but also of a different vein, coming from Neoplatonism.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

Love and friendship in Greek and Latin culture

I-Greek Culture:

1-The violence of eros and its lyric expression: Anacreon, Ibycus,Sappho.

2-Tragic eros:political implications of passion: Sophocles, Trachiniai, Euripides, Hippolytos

3-Universal dimension of pre-Socratic eros/philia;

4-Eros/philia in Plato's philosophy -Symposion: community as a means of reaching perfection; in search of the supreme Good.

II-Latin Culture 

1-Love, friendship and Stoic virtue: Cicero and Seneca.

2-Love and empire: fate, between Dido and Aeneas.

3- Love and Knowledge : neoplatonism in St Augustine.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Synthesis work: 40.0%
Research work: 60.0%

Bibliography

I.

Dodds, E.R. (1965), Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety, Cambridge.

Fialho, M.C. (2002), "Vivência e expressão de eros em Sófocles, As Traquínias" Humanitas 54, 49-62.

Hunter, R.L. (2004), Plato's Symposium, Oxford.

Mastronarde, D.J. (2010), The Art of Euripides, Cambridge.

Silva, M.F.S. (2005), Ensaios sobre Eurípides, Lisboa.

II.

Farrell, J. & Putnam, M. (2014), A Companion to Vergil's Aeneid and its Tradition, Oxford.

Lane Fox, R. (2015), Augustine: Conversions and Confessions, London.

Traduções:

CÍCERO, A amizade.  Introd., versão do latim e notas de Sebastião Tavares de Pinho, 1993.

SÉNECA, Cartas a Lucílio. Tradução, prefácio e notas de J. A. Segurado Campos. Lisboa, 1991.

AGOSTINHO, Confissões. Tradução e notas de A. do Espírito Santo, J. Beato e C. Pimentel; introdução de M. Freitas, Lisboa, 2001.

VIRGÍLIO, Eneida. Tradução de C.A. André, Lisboa, 2020.