A. Introduction to course: definitions of terms: eros, agape, philia, pothos, pathos, eromenos,
erastes, hetaera, patriarchy, psyche, logos. Methodologies of literary and mythical interpretations.
B. The Greeks:
Overall background of Greek history and society: values and traditions
Tribes: who were the Greeks? Indo-Europeans
Rise of Athens after the Peloponnesian war, democratic Athens,
Spartan society.
Status in the societies: warriors, citizens, women, children
Eroticism: not anachronistic views; contemporary views, reason/passions
Eroticism and myth and religion: Venus, Eros/Cupid
Early evidence: Lyricists: Sappho, Anacreon, Theogonis
Plato: Philebus
Eroticism and rhetoric:Plato, Phaedrus
Eroticism and philosophy: Plato, Symposium
Eroticism as a social phenomenon
Eroticism and women
Erotic taboos: Sophocles, Oedipus
Later Greek erotic evidence: Plutarch, On Marriage; On Love
C. The Romans
Overall background of Roman history and society; social values and traditions.
Contrasts and Commonalities with the Greeks
Religious redefinitions: Eros>Cupid
Catullus: Lyrics
Ovid: Art of Love, Remedia Amoris
Bisexuality: Eva Cantarella
Vergil: Aeneid, Book IV; Ecologues II
Lucretius on love
Later Christian critiques: Jerome, Augustine.
The Puritan tradition: Mani > Augustine (Manichism)
. Methodological Approaches and Caveats: anachronism, diaresis, dialectics, taxonomy,
Heuristics, historicism, description/interpretation/evaluation.