Landscape by Yayannos Apostolos (the painting that inspired the background art on this site)

Literature Humanities Homepage at Columbia

Core Curriculum page at Columbia

What is "Close Reading"? (by Rebecca)

"Self-Help Sheet" for essay writing (by Rebecca)

Glossary of Literary Terms designed for students of the Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament"); also useful for other ancient texts.

Definitions of Irony (Dramatic, Structural, and Verbal) from theUniversity of Victoria (Can.)

Handy index of Greek terms (from Bucknell College)

Perseus Digital Library homepage (original texts of Greek and Latin works, plus lookup tools and other resources)

Index of lookup tools at Perseus

Overview of Greek History at Perseus from the "World Civilizations" project at Washington State University

The Greek Mythology Link by Carlos Parada

A page on the Olympian gods (at MythNet, © 1997-2002 Neil Jenkins, Sumair Mirza and Jason Tsang.)

Homeric geography: a map of locations in the Iliad and Odyssey.

Quick-and-dirty fact-sheets from the surprisingly useful HistoryForKids site:
      --on Greek Mystery Cults
      --on Aristotle
      --on Sophocles
      --on tyrants
      --on the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
      --on Politics in the age of Pericles

Notes on Homeric type-scenes (from Bucknell College)

ekphrasis -- a description of James Heffernan's book on the subject, including a definition and some interesting material.

Definition of paradeigma (by Rebecca)

Greek text of Iliad at Perseus (transliterated into our alphabet...)

Structural diagram of Iliad, Book I (by Rebecca)

Structural diagram of ring composition in the entire Iliad, by Cedric Whitman

"The Shield of Achilles" by W. H. Auden

Greek text of Odyssey at Perseus (transliterated into our alphabet)

Handout: "Design in the Odyssey" (by Rebecca--a structural diagram, with notes, for the whole epic)

"Homeric Huckleberry?" -- a paper by G.D.Wilson comparing Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn to the Odyssey

The Odyssey: 3 Topics for Group Discussion (by Rebecca--a group activity for in- or out-of-class)

"I Don't Want to Live on the Moon" (mp3, 959 KB) a song performed by Ernie of "Sesame Street." A modern, kiddie-centric take on the themes of the Odyssey (exotic locales, non-human societies, the quest for home).

"The True Story of the Three Little Pigs" (a lesson in historiography, using a children's classic...) This text is taken from a subversive children's book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.

Historical overview of the Persian War from Washington State University (with links to other Greek history pages)

The Herodotus Website (a British resource, by John Kitson)

Note on origins of the term historia (compiled by Rebecca)

Notes on Herodotus I:1 (by Rebecca)

ELAC Guide to Greek Theatre (some useful history)

A page on the Dionysiac cult, focusing on Athenian festivals in Dionysus's honor (including the City Dionysia) -- from Brooklyn College

Historical overview of Greek tragedy from theatrehistory.com

A page on the Chthonian deities/spirits in Greek mythology and religious belief

A page on Dionysus, including his life story and a description of his cult (from The Greek Mythology Link by Carlos Parada)

Maenad with thyrsus (vase painting)

Maenad with snake (vase painting)

The Athenian Empire, a paper by Ian Morris (relevant to Thucydides)

Politics in the age of Pericles (from historyforkids.org)

The Delian League (page at Washington State University)

The Athenian Empire, democracy, and Pericles (another page at Washington State)

Background on the plague in Thucydides, from the U. of Indiana

Timeline showing careers of prominent Athenian politicians from 490 to 320, with blurbs about each one, from someone at AOL

Encyclopedia article on Alcibiades

Encyclopedia article on the Sophists

Page on the Lord of Misrule (a Christian tradition specifically associated with Tudor England, but much older than either the Tudors or Christianity; ritualized the "topsy-turvy" impulses that, when dramatized, led to the birth of tragedy)

Vase painting of man kissing youth (representative of homosexual relations in Classical Athens)

Vase painting of men and youths engaged in intercrural intercourse

Encyclopedia page on Gorgias (the rhetorically fancy Sophist who is presumed to have served as the model for Agathon's speech in Plato's Symposium)

The Bible in Lego. Yes, really. Genesis, Exodus and the Gospels have been lovingly illustrated in little plastic bricks!

The Synoptic Gospels Primer at Rutgers University, "an electronic gateway for English speakers into the history of literary analysis of gospels that were originally composed in Greek," including parallel texts in English and Greek.

A page devoted entirely to the Synoptic Problem, summarizing the full panoply of varying theories that have been proposed to explain the genesis of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

A page devoted to the Apostle Paul --his life, influences, teachings etc.

A page on the Septuagint (first translation of Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, ca. 200 B.C.E.).