Humanities 110

Paper Topic # 3

Length 1500 words

 

Due Saturday, November 13th, 5 P.M. in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.

 

Choose one of the following:

 

 

1.  Analyze the function of the plague in Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War and Sophocles's Oedipus Rex.  In your response compare the authors' treatment of civic crisis and the role of the leader.  What do these different treatments tell us about drama and the writing of history?

 

2.  Both the Oresteia and the Parthenon seem to depict Athenian self-understanding as in part a triumph of civilization over barbarism.  In what ways do both of these works also invite criticism of the city whose goddess occupies so prominent a place in both the drama and the temple?  Your discussion should rely on specific examples from both works.

 

3.  In consultation with your instructor, devise a topic of your own.