Page 2: Coursera: Greek and Roman Mythology

I've signed up for a course in Greek and Roman Mythology with Peter T. Stuck, a classical scholar and professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

This English major's little secret is that, after all these years, she has not read the major classical epics -- Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid --  all the way through.  Joining this course will remedy that!  As of today, I've  nearly finished the Aeneid, the least familiar of the trio to me.  The surprise is that I have so thoroughly enjoyed it.  I'm using Robert Fagles' translations, which overcome what had so often discouraged me -- the sheer clunkiness of  the versions that I had attempted in the past.  None of the high school versions sounded right on the page.  The deeds, conflicts and plottng all seemed flat.  Fagles gives dimension,  I'm ordering GeorgeChapman's "Homer" for the Iliad and Odyssey.  My scholarship is 17th Century England and that seems like the perfect translation for this metaphysical Elizabethian  -- esp, since its famously known that Milton, Pope, Dryden, Donne, Shakespeare were all influenced to some degree by his 1616 edition. If there is time in the course, it would be fun to compare Chapman with Pope.