Length: take “3-5 pages” as a guideline, not an absolute requirement. You don’t need to be counting words. But it is probably impossible to deal with these topics well in less than 3 pages, and if you write much more than 5 you are probably trying to do too much. The statement “3-5 pages” refers to double-spaced printing in a normal 12-point font, and would be equivalent to approximately 750-1250 words.
The specific topics. Choose and develop one.
- Discuss the development of the epic narrator from Homer’s “sing, goddess,” to Virgil’s “arms and the man I sing” and beyond. How does the nature of the voice telling the story change through the history of the epic tradition? Does the changing role of the narrator reflect other changes, perhaps in the relationship of the author to the material and the audience? Discuss at least three works, including, at a minimum, the Iliad, the Aeneid, and either The Nibelungenlied, Parzival, or The Divine Comedy.
- Discuss the interpretabilty of the epic. It has been argued, for example, that the works of Homer are “all surface.” Certain epics, on the other hand, seem to demand to be read on multiple levels. How does this change over time? How does the epic develop as an art form capable of conveying multiple and complex meanings? Discuss at least three works, including, at a minimum, one work by Homer, the Aeneid, and at least one medieval work.
- Discuss the phenomenon of intertextuality in the epic tradition. How do creators of epics embed their works in the epic tradition and/or connect them to earlier works? How does this creation of connections contribute to the meaning or artistic quality of the individual epic? Discuss at least three works, including the Aeneid and at least one medieval work.
- Discuss the nature of the hero in ancient and medieval epic. What are the characteristics of the hero in Homer, Virgil, and beyond? How is Aeneas different from Achilles, or how is Dante the Pilgrim different from Aeneas? Does the epic hero embody moral or ethical or spiritual values that the poem appears to endorse? Or is the hero just the best fighter and the toughest man? Discuss the heroes of at least three epics, including at least one ancient and at least one medieval epic.
- Consider the miniature paintings representing two important moments in the Divine Comedy — the opening image of Dante lost in the woods and the image/s of Dante and Virgil with Paolo and Francesca (Inferno 5.88-142) in three manuscripts — Yates Thompson 36, Holkham Misc. 48, and BN it. 2017. Details on these manuscripts, and the images you need to work with, are to be found in “The Divine Comedy in the Visual Arts for the Final Paper” in Sakai Resources. You may choose to narrow the topic by discussing only the images of Dante lost in the woods OR Dante and Virgil with Paolo and Francesca. Look carefully at the images and compare them to the text passages that they most closely reflect. Do the images follow the words of the text closely, or could they be said to represent narrative ideas more than specific words and phrases? How much potential do these images have for independent narrative? Could they in any way tell the story to non-reading viewers? Or do they seem to be intended for readers to look at while reading the Comedy? Do the images offer visual commentaries or explanations of the Comedy?
- Compare three visual art works that depict one famous narrative moment: one of the Paolo and Francesca miniatures from the Comedy manuscripts mentioned above (see “The Divine Comedy in the Visual Arts for the Final Paper” in Resources), the Aeneas and Dido miniature from the Vergilius Romanus (see Details on the Vergilius Romanus in Resources), and the “Ransom of Hector” vase painting that we discussed earlier in the semester (go to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Harvard+1972.40&object=vase and then click on “view thumbnails” for an excellent set of photographs). How independently might each image narrate? How much knowledge of the story from textual or other sources might be required to make sense of the image? How might the comparison of these three images — one from classical Antiquity, one from late Antiquity, and one from the late Middle Ages — suggest relationships between the visual depiction of literary materials and changes in literacy rates, educational systems, etc.?
