Humanities 110

Paper Topic # 4

Length 1500 words

 

Due Saturday, December 4th, 5 P.M. in your conference leader's Eliot Hall mailbox.

 

Choose one of the following:

 

1.  What are the effects of having more than one chorus in Aristophanes's Lysistrata?

 

2.   Compare the relation between reason and the divine in Xenophanes and The Bacchae.  [For example, one could compare Xenophanes's reasoning about the divine with Euripides's representation of the relation between reason and the divine in The Bacchae, or one could compare the characters' reasoning at the end of The Bacchae with Xenophanes's reasoning.]

 

3.  Discuss the portrayal of Dionysus in The Bacchae.  How does it compare to the depiction of god(s) in another work you have read this semester?  What is the importance of the similarities and differences?

 

4.  On page 241 of our edition of The Republic, C.D.C. Reeve tells us that in the middle of Book IX, "...Socrates is ready to respond to the challenge Glaucon raised in Book II.  His response consists of three complex arguments."  Choose one of these three arguments, and carefully explain what it is, and how it answers Glaucon's challenge.  Then give a good objection to it, and consider how Plato (Socrates) might respond to your objection.  (Be sure that it is clear in your mind and in your paper just what Glaucon's challenge is.)

 

5.  In the Apology, Socrates claims that he is the best kind of citizen.  How does he justify this claim?   Would the Socrates of the Apology fit into the ideal state envisioned in Plato's Republic and if so, how?

 

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