Ancient Literature

This course is designed to give students a sense of world literature dating from the Ice Age to the beginning of the European Middle Age. We will focus particularly on the Odyssey, Gilgamesh, and the Indian epic of the Mahabharata. We will also study Irish, Norse, Greek and North American mythology. Much of this literature is oral in nature, so the class will be a blend of written texts and oral storytelling. Students will be required to explore these works creatively through their own writing, to learn to tell at least one traditional tale, and to write brief essays about what they have read.

JL 2022 1 Smaller

Instructor: Jay Leeming

Instructor Bio: Jay Leeming is a poet and performance storyteller who has spent years brinigng the power of the spoken word to audiences in theaters, schools, libraries and National Parks. He is the author of three collections of poetry, the creator of the Crane Bag Podcast, the former editor of the journal Rowboat: Poetry in Translation and the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. More information about his work as well as recordings of his performances of the Epic of Gilgamesh, “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight,” numerous Norse myths and the Odyssey can be found at http://www.JayLeeming.com.

Required Materials: pen or pencil; notebook; The Odyssey (translated by Robert Fagles); Gilgamesh (translated by N.K. Sandars); any book from the Panthenon Folktale Library (except for “Victorian Fairy Tales”). This is a book for you to work with over the length of the course, so please choose a book likely to have stories in it which you would like to tell to others. **TEEN DAY will provide copies of all books except the Pantheon Folktale text. Families will need to select and purchase this separately. Copies may be new or used.**

Additional Materials Fee: $30 to cover books