Ancient Poetry at the End of the World

Course Description:

We live in unprecedented times—and have been for 3,000 years. Wars to end all wars, climate disasters, the collapse of governments, migrant crises, sweeping plagues: these modern portents also happened to inspire some of antiquity’s finest poetry. In this course, we will return to the ancient poets of Greece and Rome and examine how they dealt with the fear that their age would be the world’s last. In reading select poems in translation about war, homesickness, climate change, and more, we will uncover how the poetry of the past can be a voice of comfort to our present anxieties about the future.

For this course's syllabus, see the PDF below. Videos of lectures are available upon request.