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Module 13 - Part 2: Explorations and Exercises

Other parts of this module include: Index  |  Part 1: Overview  |  Part 3: Texts and Contexts  |  Part 4: Web Resources

The Purpose of Writing: From Things to Thoughts in the Ancient World

To respond to these exercises, it helps to have some appreciation of the cultural assumptions explored in them. Click on Web Resources for further insights into the way ideas about the human and divine in each culture colors the literary texts that we are studying.

These questions are arranged into three color-coded categories.

Level A invites you to look closely at some specific aspects of individual texts. Answering these questions shows that you have read carefully and understand the significance of important words and ideas as they appear in context.

Level B asks you to think more deeply about the implications of some of the details that you have isolated.

Level C allows you to build on the findings of the first two categories to theorize broadly about the relationship of the text to social and historical forces beyond the work itself.

Topics in this module's Exploration and Exercises section include:

Focus on Egyptian Love Songs

Level A

  1. Follow the speaker’s gaze in “My love is one and only, without peer.” What is he looking at as he begins his poem? Where does his eye travel as he continues?
  2. What scene does the speaker of “I wish I were her Nubian girl” imagine? 
  3. What activity does the speaker of “Look, how I’d love to slip down to the pond” wish to undertake? Who is the speaker of this poem? What do you make of the little red fish?
  4. What scene does the speaker of “I think I’ll go home and lie very still” contemplate?
  5. What kinds of similes dominate “Love of you is mixed deep in my vitals”?

Level B

  1. How would you summarize the view of love characterized by the imagery and interests you discovered in the Egyptian love songs? 
  2. 2.What do we know about the speakers of the love songs? How would you compare their voices and interests to those of the “Hymn to the Sun” and the Leiden Hymns? What personal pronoun dominates Hymns? What personal pronouns typify love lyrics?
  3.  How does the palace figure in “I was simply off to see Nefrus my friend”? Do the speakers of these poems seem to have pressing obligations in their lives?

Level C

  1. What ages would you ascribe to the speakers of the Egyptian love songs?How does age relate to the preoccupation these poems show?
  2. Describe the world that the Egyptian love songs reveal. What is valued here? How do people spend their time? What role does social class play in these poems?

Focus on the Classic of Poetry

Level A

  1. Whose voices speak in “Fishhawk” and “Dead Roe Deer”? In what ways are the dramatic situations in these two poems comparable?
  2. What worries the speaker in “Plums Are Falling”? How would you contrast her anxieties with the attitudes expressed by the speaker of “Quince”? To what extent do you think the differences between the two reflect gender differences?  Try to provide specific textual evidence for your response.
  3. Examine how repetition seems to help the speakers of poems like “Gentle Girl” and “Chung-tzu, Please” express their feelings.

Level B

  1. What is the relationship between the opening stanza of “Gentle girl” and the second two stanzas of the poem? How does the speaker’s description of his physical circumstances resemble the action of the speaker of “I Went Along the Broad Road”? How do these outward gestures speak of internal feelings?
  2. What gifts are exchanged in poems like “Gentle Girl” and “Quince”? How does the structure of the poem seem to mimic the transfer of objects from one person to another?

Level C

  1. Contrasting the Chinese tradition with the Western tradition, scholars frequently point to the absence of epic in East Asian literature. Typically, the Anthology headnote speaks of “the values of an antiheroic world” found in the lyrics in the Classic of Poetry. Some of the rhetorical devices found in these early poems, however, and the cultural uses to which they were put, resemble aspects of Homeric epic. Give some examples of these resemblances between epic and lyric in these early poems, and relate them to the transition from orality to literacy.
  2. What gifts are exchanged in epic poems like the Iliad and the Odyssey? How does the character and purpose of such exchanges differ from the exchanges described in the Classic of Poetry? How do responses to proffered gifts in the Greek epics and the Chinese lyrics give us insight into the interior life of the different characters and speakers? Are thoughts conveyed through words or through things in these poems?

Focus on Sappho’s Lyrics

Level A

  1. Describe the attributes of the Sapphic stanza as reproduced by Richmond Lattimore in his translation of the three poems in the Anthology.
  2. Who is Persuasion? What does the existence of such a figure say about ancient Greek conceptions of the power of speech? (See Web Resources.)
  3. What is the dramatic situation in “Like the very gods”? What sensory response does the speaker experience during the moment she describes?
  4. Explain the phrase, “But it breaks my spirit” in “Like the very gods” (l. 5).  How does this expression capture the import of the sensations of which the poem provides so detailed an account?
  5. Explain the basic contrast drawn in “Some there are.” How does the figure of Helen artfully bridge the gap between the two contrasted worlds? 

Level B

  1. The descent of a god is a frequent motif in ancient Greek poetry. How does Sappho convey the difference between the atmosphere in which Aphrodite lives and the world of human experience in lines 5-11 of “Throned in splendor”? Comment on the ways she captures the gap between the two through references to color and light.
  2. The speaker of the prayer to Aphrodite has called on the goddess before for the same kind of help she requests now. What does the repetition of this request tell us about the nature and permanence of desire? What did Aphrodite promise the first time? Are you surprised by the implications of lines 21-24? 
  3. What is the link between passion and persuasion in “Some there are”? What threatens the structure of family allegiances that Greek brides were trained to honor? Contrast the desertions of Helen and Anaktoria referred to in this poem. Which figure conforms to the social expectations of her world? In what way does Sappho’s poem challenge those expectations?

Level C

  1. Contrast the Sapphic stanza with the organizing strategies of the Egyptian love lyrics and the Chinese lyrics. Which poems seem to have been composed in writing rather than orally?
  2. Compare the stance in which Sappho imagines Aphrodite assisting the speaker (“Throned in Splendor,” ll. 27-28) to Homeric depictions of heroes being helped by a goddess (see, for example, Athena’s posture in the Iliad, 1.232-47, or the Odyssey  (XXII, 239-46). How do these various descriptions tell us something about the Greek gods’ tactful intervention in the affairs of the mortals they favor? What must human beings do for themselves?  
  3. The speaker of “Like the very gods” links illness and mortality to passion. Compare the attitude toward passion in other Greek and classical works, like Medea or Racine’s Phaedre (Vol. D), which is based on a play by Euripides. Compare the view of passion and desire in the ancient poets and playwrights to the views that Renaissance poets, beginning with Petrarch, articulate.  

Focus on Chuang Tzu

Level A

  1. In the first chapter of his book, Chuang Tzu cites a printed source (the Universal Harmony) as evidence for his amusing pronouncement about the effect of a migrating bird on the winds and the sea. How does this citation signal from the start the attitude he takes toward philosophical writers?  
  2. Why does Hsu Yu refuse to take over the empire offered him by Yao (p. 836)? What does he mean by saying, “Now if I take your place, will I be doing it for a name? But name is only the guest of reality—will I be doing it so I can play the part of a guest”?

Level B

The chapter entitled “Discussion of Making All Things Equal” makes fun of the penchant that philosophers have for organizing experience into categories. What does it mean to say, for example, “If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way”? How is this attitude reflected in the view of writing articulated in the Chuang Tzu?

Level C

  1. The Chuang Tzu offers many pointed contrasts between Taoist and Confucian modes of thinking. Discuss the ideas attributed to Confucius in Chapter 12 (pp. 851-52) and comment on the way the two philosophical schools differ in their view of the value of learning and the arts.
  2. Socratic wisdom advocates self-knowledge. Compare the view of self-conscious awareness and “outward form” in Chapter 20 of the Chuang Tzu (pp. 855-56). Write an essay that analyzes the subtleties of each philosopher by investigating the words of Yang Tzu in the Chinese text: “If you act worthily but rid yourself of the awareness that you are acting worthily, then where can you go that you will not be loved?”  
  3. Compare the anecdote about Duke Huan in “The Way of Heaven” (pp. 852-53) with the analysis of writing in Plato’s Phaedrus.
  4. Compare the conversation that Chuang Tzu has with an old skull in Chapter 18, “Perfect Happiness” (p. 854), with Hamlet’s apostrophe to the skull of Yorick (5.1.161-70) in Shakespeare’s play. How does the skull’s accusation that Chuang Tzu “chatter[s] like a rhetorician” link ideas about life and death to language and argumentation? Write an essay in which you consider how each text assigns a value to mortality as a reflection of one’s self-presentation to the world.

Focus on Catullus, Lyrics

Level A

  1. What is the basic metaphor in poem #5? 
  2. The headnote in the Anthology alerts us to “an obscene double meaning” (p. 1046) in the description of Lesbia’s sparrow in # 2. It is also worth noting that sparrows propel Aphrodite’s chariot, as mentioned in Sappho’s “Throned in splendor” (p. 531). What qualities might we associate with the sparrow (as opposed to the dove and the swan, the two other birds sacred to the goddess of love) that convey what love for Lesbia does to Catullus? (In Lyric 3, not in the Anthology, the sparrow has died.)
  3. What happens to the speaker in the course of the poems to Lesbia in the Anthology?  What kind of psychological self-portrait emerges? What is essentially new about the uses to which Catullus puts lyric poetry?

Level B

  1. What evidence of mercantile Roman activity can you find in the language of the poems to Lesbia? How do the values of the society in which Catullus lives complicate the language of love? Are these sentimental poems? 
  2. Compare the tone of Sappho’s “Like the very gods” with # 51 of Catullus: what is the effect of the parenthetical addition that he makes in the second line of the poem, translated as “may I say it?” as he speaks of the godlike qualities of the man whom he envies? Because the original manuscript is missing a line, the translator has introduced into the Roman poet’s version of Sappho’s verses a phrase in which he has Catullus say, “all of my well-chosen / words are forgotten” (ll. 7-8). How does this phrase suggest the difference between the expressive goals of the Latin poet, a self-conscious writer, and the Greek original, sung by the artist as a performer?
  3. Discuss the distinction that Catullus draws in poem #70 between saying and writing. How does gender contribute to the contrast? 
  4. In #83, Lesbia is again very vocal, but to a different purpose. What would her silence mean? Why does Catullus value the insults that she speaks to him? Can he ever trust this woman’s words?

Level C

  1. How do the poems of Catullus mimic speech? How does he use self-address in order to investigate his own psyche? Follow the thought patterns of #8 and #76 and compare the way he shifts the focus of his address. What does the illusion of conversational fluency communicate about the state of mind that he wishes to project in these poems?
  2. Sappho’s influence on Catullus may be observed not only in #51 but also directly, in the meter he adopts in #11 and indirectly, in some of his imagery. Compare the references to the exotic east and the contrast between the lives of men and women in Sappho’s “Some there are” and in #11 by Catullus. Why do you think he may have wanted to evoke Sappho’s manner in the latter poem? How would you describe the tone and intensity of his characterization of Lesbia in the final stanza of #11?   

Focus on Io, Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Level A

  1. How does Ovid simultaneously convey the pathos and the ridiculousness of Io’s plight as she tries to “utter some lament” to her guardian Argos (279)? How successful is her effort to speak?
  2. What does Io manage to do that allows her to communicate despite being trapped in the form of a cow?
  3. Among the stories of origins that Book I of the Metamorphoses retells, Mercury, in the guise of a goatherd, starts to tell Argus how pipes had recently been invented. Like the nymph Daphne who was saved from Apollo’s assault by being turned into a laurel tree, Syrinx, who ran from Pan, turned into marsh reeds and became a musical instrument. What is the effect of this narration on Argus? How far does Mercury get in the story? How do you think the reader should respond?

Level B

  1.  “Io” in Greek means “woe.” How does Ovid incorporate that meaning in the reaction that Inachus has to seeing a cow write his daughter’s name in the sand? 
  2. Inachus bemoans the silence with which Io responds to his grief. How does Ovid invite us to ponder the difficulties we have in communicating with each other by inserting the story of Syrinx and the invention of panpipes into his narrative after the meeting between Io and Inachus?

Level C

  1. Collecting evidence from Ovid’s text, write a short essay in which you propose and defend an arguable thesis that evaluates the relative uses and importance of music, words, and writing in Book I of the Metamorphoses.
  2. Compare and contrast the role of silence in some of the early Egyptian lyrics (for example, “Why, just now, must you question your heart?” or “I think I’ll go home and lie very still”) and in the story of Io in the Metamorphoses. In which of these texts does silence function as a strategic mode of communication? In what circumstances is it a protective device or an admission of failure? In general, how successfully do the actors in Ovid’s poem find nonverbal means for the expression of internal feelings?

Focus on Texts and Contexts

Plato, Phaedrus

Level A

  1. Recount the story that Socrates tells about ancient Egypt to explain the invention of writing to his colleague Phaedrus.
  2. Homer, who is revered by Socrates, begins his poems by invoking the Muse, who is a daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of Memory. Why were the Muses linked to memory?

Level B

  1. Why does Socrates approve the playful use of writing that he finds in Homer and condemn those who think that writing can seriously embody truth? 
  2. Socrates concludes his discussion with Phaedrus by praying to the god Pan: “give me beauty in the inward soul; and may the outward and inward man be at one.” Discuss how this prayer relates to his argument that likens writing to painting.

Level C

In what way is Plato’s characterization of Socrates and his views inseparable from the transition from orality to literacy that occurred in fifth-century Athens? Bring evidence from your reading in other works from classical antiquity that help explain the bias that Socrates has in favor of dialogue and speech.

Ovid, Heroides XV: Sappho to Phaon 

Level A

  1. Explain the dramatic situation in this poem. Who is the letter writer? What is her problem?
  2. According to Ovid’s poem, what has changed in Sappho’s relationship to the persons addressed or mentioned in the poems in the Anthology? 

Level B

  1. How does the imagery in the opening sections of the fictional letter that is Ovid’s poem demonstrate his knowledge of Sappho’s original lyrics? 
  2. Ovid’s Sappho reflects on her reputation for poetry. How does she compare herself with Alcaeus? What audience might have favored the legend of Sappho’s leaping off a cliff because of her unrequited love for a younger man?
  3. The letter-writing Sappho says that she weeps as she writes and compares herself to the nightingale, who sings out of pain. What theory of poetic inspiration lies behind these characterizations? How does her longing for Phaon imply the limits of such inspiration? What does she plan to do with her lute and lyre in his continued absence?

Level C

Most of Ovid’s Heroides are letters written by mythological heroines to absent lovers. What is absurd about the idea that a figure like Penelope would have sent a letter to Odysseus (such a letter opens the sequence)? Discuss the Latin poet’s fascination with the act of writing and reflect on the ways in which love letters symbolize the power of the written word.

Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus, Act 4, scene 1

Level A

  1. How do the items that Lucius, Lavinia’s nephew, carries as he comes on stage establish the topic of the entire scene? What use does Lavinia make of them?
  2. Marcus, Lavinia’s uncle, sets a model for her to follow when he writes his name “without the help of any hand at all.” In a play so permeated with Ovidian references, what moment in the Metamorphoses does Marcus’s action encourage his audience to recall?

Level B

  1. Shakespeare’s language identifies the mutilated Lavinia herself as a “sign” that requires interpretation; contemplating his daughter, Titus vows to “wrest an alphabet” from her gestures “And by still practice learn to know [her] meaning” (3.2.44-45). How does Titus Andronicus, by moving beyond normality, help us understand that in the normal world we speak with our bodies? 
  2. What literary passage does Lavinia bring to her uncle’s attention? How does reading from a work of fiction make intelligible Lavinia’s reality? What does this suggest about the necessity for reading before one can write? 

Level C

How is the impact of Lavinia’s writing with the staff heightened by her violation? Note the specificity of the stage direction: She takes the staff in her mouth, and guides it with her stumps, and writes. How does this description of her action extend the audience’s empathetic grasp of Lavinia’s successful communication? How might Shakespeare, the product of a literate culture, respond to Plato’s critique of writing?

 
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