Reed College
Reed College

Humanities 110

Introduction to the Humanities

Paper Topics | Fall 2000 | Paper 3

Due Date: Saturday, November 11, 2000, 5 p.m. in the Faculty mailboxes in Eliot.
Length: 1500 words.

Write on one of the following questions:

  1. In the Agamemnon, the chorus asserts that:

    "Zeus [puts] men on the way of wisdom
    by making it a valid law
    that by suffering they learn."

    How is this proposition borne out or refuted in each of the three plays of Aeschylus' trilogy?

  2. If human actions are fated, what can their moral significance be? Answer this question in relation to Aeschylus' representation of Agamemnon or Orestes, or Sophocles' representation of Oedipus.

  3. Evaluate Clytemnestra's role as a mother in the Libation Bearers, taking into account her dream, her reaction to the news of Orestes' death, the nurse's speech, and Clytemnestra's final interaction with Orestes.

  4. What is the purpose of the Antigone-Ismene relationship in the larger context of Sophocles' Antigone?

  5. In Art and Illusion, Gombrich argues that form follows function in art. Choose an image from Pollitt's Art and Experience in Classical Greece and test the usefulness of Gombrich's theory in a detailed visual analysis of it.

  6. After fateful encounters with the blind Tiresias, two successive rulers of Thebes are themselves rendered 'blind'. Compare the ways in which Creon (in Antigone) and Oedipus (in Oedipus Tyrannus) react to the prophet and the knowledge he bears.

  7. Examine the funeral oration of Pericles (II: 35-46) and his speech to the Athenians during the second Peloponnesian invasion of Attica (II: 60-64). Analyze how Pericles' defense of the Athenian empire reinforces or undermines his commitment to democracy.

  8. Examine Thucydides' account of the Theban takeover of Plataea and its aftermath (II. 1-6; II. 71-78; III. 20-24; III. 52-68). What are the major issues Thucydides raises in his analysis of Plataea, and how does his account of Plataea fit into his history as a whole?

  9. Analyze Pericles' and Alcibiades' views (at II. 40-42 and VI. 16-17, respectively) about the ways private citizens contribute to the power of Athens. In what ways do they agree or disagree? What, in your opinion, is Thucydides' view of the matter?