Classics 244

Poetry & the Cosmos

"We know how to tell many believable lies,
But also, when we want to, how to speak the plain truth."
–Hesiod (The Muses are speaking.)

"The road up and the road down are one and the same."
–Heraclitus

For more information about this course, or to make an appointment, please email the instructor (wareht).

Didactic poems by 18th c. French and Scottish physicians: La Mettrie wrote L'Homme-machine in a materialstic and atheistic vein that owes something to Lucretius, and you can find an excerpt from Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health in this collection of "science poems".

Final Paper (due W 6/7, 2 p.m.)
Final Paper Development Worksheet (due M 5/29)
Paper #2 (due W 5/24): Relating Lucretius to Empedocles or Heraclitus
- Some additional suggestions
Synthesis Assignment (due M 5/8): Heraclitus
Synthesis Assignment (due M 5/1): Empedocles
Paper #1 (due W 4/26)
- includes guidelines for all papers in this course
- supplemented by the Catalog of Hesiodic Echoes in Parmenides' Poem
Synthesis Assignment (due W 4/19): Parmenides
Reading Questions #5 (due M 4/17): Works and Days
Reading Questions #4 (due M 4/10): Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes
Reading Questions #3 (due M 4/3): Thales
Reading Questions #2 (due F 3/31): Very Short Introduction Chs. 4-5
Reading Questions #1 (due W 3/29): Very Short Introduction Chs. 1-2
- includes "General Guidance on Reading Questions"