COURSERA'S COURSE ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY (REVISED)

N C Wyeth did a good job on the Odyssey. I wonder why none of the translations I've seen use these pictures?

These are oil paintings, approximately 4' X 3'.

Anyway, what I really want to talk about is Coursera's currently offered course in Greek and Roman Mythology.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, a word about Coursera....

Coursera provides free college-level courses on the internet. You can audit the courses by simply watching the videos, or you can participate at a higher level by reading the assigned texts, taking tests, writing papers graded mostly by peers, and participating in class discussion on the net.

The only fee is optional...if you pass the course you might want to pay $30 or so for a certificate verifying that fact. Selected courses are accepted for full credit by over 2,000 American colleges. You can drop out at any time and the drop won't be held against you. Records are only kept on courses the student has successfully completed. And it's all free, did I mention that?

I know what you're thinking, that no internet course can compete with live teaching. My answer to that is...well, of course not. There's obviously no substitute for live give and take and for the role model offered by a gifted teacher. This is for people who can't do that, or who want to audit a difficult course like calculus before taking it again for credit in a live class.



My family (minus me) is taking Peter Struck's 10 week course on Greek and Roman mythology right now, and they're loving it. This morning they were telling me about the way different critics interpreted the The Odyssey through the ages. A classical Greek critic interpreted it as an allegory of the way the gods work on us through different parts and artifacts of the body like bile or the spleen. Hume thought the book was nonsense and ought to be forgotten. Heine (the 19th Century romantic) thought the story was a door into what would later be called the subconscious. Fascinating!

Here's (below) the reading list for the class.

I didn't take the course because only Homer and Virgil and possibly Hesiod really interest me, but Struck looks like a good teacher and it might have been fun to see what he had to say about the others.



There's an introduction to English Common Law course coming up that I have my eye on. It's an odd subject for a cartoonist to take, and I have no intention of ever being a lawyer, but I love the parts I've read of Blackstone's commentaries, and I'm curious to know more. Besides, if the class doesn't keep my interest I can drop it, with no penalty.

BTW: Struck is using the Fagles translation of The Odyssey, which he defended on a video. Some of the students pushed for the newer Lombardo version. See what you think...