Department of Classics

Phillis Wheatley (1753-84)

Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American poet to have her work published, was born in Africa; in 1761 she was brought on a slave ship to Boston and bought by the Wheatley family. In their household she learned to read and write, began the study of Latin, read extensively in English literature, and began writing poetry in her teens. A volume of her poems was published in London in 1773, and she was freed soon after. Other poems appeared in newspapers and pamphlets; many are lost, since a plan for a second book fell through.

•   “To Maecenas”

Countee Cullen (1903-1946)

Countee Cullen played a central role in the Harlem Renaissance, publishing poetry, plays (including a translation of Euripides’ Medea with an added prologue and epilogue), a novel, and several children’s books. Ηe lived and worked in both France and the U.S., and was a supporter of other Black writers including the young James Baldwin.

• “Yet Do I Marvel” 
• “Medusa”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)

Among the most highly regarded American poets of the 20th century, Brooks was the first Black author to win the Pulitzer Prize and the first Black woman to hold the office of “poetry consultant” to the Library of Congress; she was also poet laureate of Illinois. Her publications include the poetry collections A Street in Bronzeville, Annie Allen (from which “The Anniad” is taken), and In the Mecca, as well as the novel Maud Martha.

• Selections from “The Anniad”

Derek Walcott (1930-2017)

Saint Lucian poet and playwright, whose numerous awards include the Nobel Prize in Literature, a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, and the Queen’s Medal for Poetry. His publications include the poetry collections 25 Poems, In a Green Night, Tiepolo’s Hound, The Prodigal, White Egrets, and Morning, Paramin, the epic poem Omeros, and the play Dream on Monkey Mountain.

• Selections from poems including: “Sea Grapes,” “Map of the New World,” “Roman Outposts,” “Greece,” “Hotel Normandie Pool,” “Midsummer XXXIV” “White Magic” “Italian Eclogues I”

Rita Dove (1952-)

American poet and playwright, whose awards include the NAACP Image Award, a Fulbright scholarship, the Pulitzer Prize, and a National Humanities Medal. Her many works include the novel-in-verse Thomas and Beulah, poetry collections On the Bus with Rosa Parks and Sonata Mulattica, and the play The Darker Face of the Earth.

• Selections from Mother Love (Demeter/Persephone)
• Selections from Museum

Wesley Enoch (1969-)

Wesley Enoch, playwright and artistic director, grew up in Brisbane. He has been artistic director at a number of companies, starting with Kooemba Djarra Indigenous Performing Arts and most recently at Queensland Theatre Company. His play The Story of the Miracles at Cookie’s Table won the Patrick White Playwright’s Award.

• Selection from Black Medea

Donika Kelly (1982-)

Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Bonaventure University and author of the poetry collections Aviarium and Bestiary. Kelly has won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize, the Hurston/Wright Award, and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, as well as being long-listed for a National Book Award and a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

• Selections from Bestiary

Ishion Hutchinson (1983-)

Born in Port Antonio, Jamaica, Ishion Hutchinson is the author of two poetry collections, Far District and House of Lords and Commons. Awards and honors include National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, Guggenheim Fellowship, the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature. He is an associate professor of English at Cornell University.

• Selections from Far District
• Selections from House of Lords and Commons

Inua Ellams (1984-)

Nigerian poet, playwright, and performer, whose publications include the poetry collections Candy Coated Unicorns and Converse All Stars, Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales, the Wire-Headed Heathen, #Afterhours, and the verse epic The Half-God of Rainfall, as well as the play The 14th Tale. Ellams is an ambassador for the Ministry of Stories and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and has been awarded the Liberty Human Rights Arts Award.

• Selections from The Half God of Rainfall

Nabila Lovelace

American poet, author of the poetry collection Sons of Achilles. She has won the Poets & Writers Amy Award, and been a finalist for numerous awards including the Poetry Witch Magazine Summer Sοlstice Bop Contest and the Vinyl 45 Chapbook Contest. Her poetry has been published in Narrative Northeast and Washington Square Review, and she is a poetry editor at Black Warrior Review and The Offing.

• Selections from Sons of Achilles

Nicole Sealey

Born in St. Thomas (USVI) and raised in Florida, Sealey is an award-winning poet and director of the Cave Canem Foundation. Her many awards include the Rome Prize and the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize; she has taught at The City College of New York, Boston University, and Princeton University.

• Selections from Ordinary Beast

Classics is the study of the ancient Greek and Roman world, its languages, its cultures, and their impact on later cultural traditions.

Our evolving understanding of these concepts (e.g. "ancient," “culture,” “Roman”) gives our discipline dynamism, while a common body of texts function as its shared center. Classics is also interested in how later peoples understood and transformed this inheritance, generating the rich Classical tradition in literature and the other arts.

The Department of Classics at Haverford embraces the interdisciplinary study of any and all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman cultures. Our courses also invite students to explore the people, ideas, and works that Greek and Roman antiquity inspire, influence, and shape throughout time and around the world. The Department offers courses in ancient history, literature, and culture in English translation; as well as courses in Greek and Latin language and literature at all levels.

Interesting in learning more about the world of Aristophanes’ Birds? Consider signing up for Elementary Ancient Greek this spring: it’s the only language in the BiCo you can start in the spring semester! Greek and Latin both fulfill the foreign language requirement.
Already enjoying a course in the department? Why not consider one of our many majors or minors! Speak with any member of the department for more details!

The Play

Aristophanes’ comic masterpiece Birds premiered in Athens in 414 BCE, a time of great tension and turmoil in the city. After a brief period of peace, the war with Sparta was heating up again; Athens had just dispatched a major invasion force to fight a proxy war in Sicily, and the Athenians did not yet know the humiliating disaster this expedition would become. A group of prominent citizens had recently been accused of engaging in an elaborate act of blasphemy, and the full extent of the conspiracy to desecrate certain icons of Athenian religion was not yet known. Athens’ last great leader, Pericles, had been dead for more than fifteen years, and a series of increasingly corrupt demagogues had arisen to take his place, leading the city deeper and deeper into an unnecessary conflict with Sparta that Athens would eventually lose.

In Birds, two Athenian citizens, Peisetaerus (“Companion-Persuader”) and Euelpides (“Son of Good Hope”) decide they’ve finally had enough. They flee Athens’ troubles, its litigious citizens and misguided leaders, and set out to find a perfect city somewhere else. They track down the mythological King Tereus, who they know from a recent tragedy by Sophocles has been turned into a bird, reasoning that a bird-man will have traveled broadly and can help them identify the perfect place to live. Their plans abruptly change, however, when Peisetaerus decides instead to found a new city up in the sky among the birds: Nephelokokkygia, “Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.” Will it be the utopia these ex-Athenians were searching for – or have they brought all their Athenian problems with them?

A participatory reading of the epic poem in Emily Wilson’s new Translation

October 3, 2018

VCAM

9:30 am until odysseus is Safe at home
featuring a Lunchtime conversation with the translator

The Haverblog: Haverford Classics Hosts “Homerathon”

Wednesday November 16, 2016 9:15 am until we run out of Horace

Sunken Lounge, HC Dining Center

The Haverblog: The Clouds: Classics Marathon 2015

A staged reading of Aristophanes’ comedy
The Clouds

translated by Peter Meineck*

Synopsis

The play begins with Strepsiades bemoaning the debts accumulated by his profligate and athletic son, Pheidippides. But Strepsiades has a plan: to send his son to college (aka “The Pondertorium”) where he can learn rhetorical tricks that will allow them to weasel out of their debts. When Pheidippides refuses, Strepsiades enrolls. Impressed by the obscure knowledge the students have mastered, Strepsiades begs an audience with Socrates, who agrees to make him the greatest orator in Greece. A chorus of clouds appears and praises the play and the playwright. After Strepsiades fails in his studies, Pheidippides agrees to enroll. Inferior Argument defeats Superior Argument in a debate and begins to train Pheidippides, who is transformed into a nerd. Strepsiades, confident that his newly educated son will allow him to avoid his debts, contemptuously dismisses his creditors. When Pheidippides refuses to help and instead beats Strepsiades (!), Strepsiades leads an armed mob against the college.

Cast

Strepsiades, a rural Athenian: James Burvant
Pheidippides, son of Strepsiades: Carman Romano
Houseboy & Xanthias, servants of Strepsiades: Bret Mulligan
Students of Socrates: Julie Benton, Robert Borek
Socrates, a philosopher: Zakery Oglesby
Superior Argument: Jai Nimgaonkar
Inferior Argument: Nick Barile
First creditor: Ceci Silberstein
Second creditor: Bill Tortorelli
Chaerephon a philosopher: Andrew Eaddy
Chorus leader: Radcliffe Edmonds
Chorus A: Julie Benton, Andrew Eaddy, Radcliffe Edmonds, Bret Mulligan
Chorus B: Robert Borek, Deborah Roberts, Ceci Silberstein, Bill Tortorelli

*used by permission of Hackett Publishing.

This year's all-day participatory marathon went on from 8 am until 8 pm for which students, faculty and staff could sign up in advance or join in spontaneously at the event. The marathon brought together a range of students and faculty, including President Dan Weiss.

The Haverblog: Reading Homer’s Iliad Together at Haverford

Seneca's Medea, on Wednesday Nov. 6 , 2013 at 7:00 PM in the DC

• Jason: James Faville
• Medea: Marielle Boudreau
• Nurse: Alison Robin
• Creon: Zak Oglesby
• Messenger: Shayna Slininger (Also in the chorus)
• Chorus: Kiran Rajamani, Emma Mongoven, Hannah Weissman, Amanda Robiolio, Amelia de Angelo, Joseph Le Roux, Fran Gascoigne, Gus Heilbock and assorted faculty members.

Apuleius' Golden Ass. Intende Lector!

For our 7th annual Classics Marathon, faculty and students gathered on October 26 for a participatory reading of Apuleius' Golden Ass or Metamorphosis, a Latin text of the 2nd century C.E. and one of the oldest novels in the western literary tradition.  Apuleius' narrator tells the tale of his transformation into a donkey and his subsequent adventures: the main narrative and the numerous stories it incorporates offer us a mélange of adventure, comedy, horror, fairy-tale, social satire, and religious epiphany.  

Apuleius concludes his prologue with the words lector intende: laetaberis ("Reader, pay attention: you'll have fun").  We invite you to share in the fun.  Would-be readers (no experience needed) can drop in any time and take a turn.  Listeners are also welcome.

Aristophanes' Lysistrata. No Peace for Athens!?! No Sex for You!

For our sixth annual Classics Marathon, faculty and students gathered on October 26 for an unrehearsed staged reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata.

Synopsis

Athens has been at war for many years with other Greek city-states. As the play begins, Lysistrata, a young married woman, has summoned women both of Athens and of her current enemies to a meeting. When they arrive, she reveals her plan: to carry out a sex strike, in which no woman will sleep with her husband until the men stop the war. The woman are at first reluctant to make such a sacrifice, but she persuades them, and they take an oath.

Meanwhile, the women of Athens have taken over the Acropolis. The chorus of old men arrive with firewood and torches to besiege them; they are confronted by the chorus of old women, armed with jars of water to put our their fire. A class ensues.

The Councilor (an Athenian official) arrives accompanied by Scythian guards (the police force of Athens) and slaves with crowbars, and tries to dislodge the women. Lysistrata and several old women successfully resist him; this scene is followed by another angry exchange between the two choruses.

Several days later, Lysistrata emerges to express concern: women are unwilling to hold out any longer, and several have run away. Three more now make the attempt. This episode is followed by a scene in which the Cinesias, husband Myrrhine, one of the women on the Acropolis, arrives with their baby to beg her to come back; he is obviously starved for sex (as indicated in the original production by a large phallus), and she appears willing to accommodate him – at first.

Now a herald arrives from Sparta, like Cinesias in desperate condition. He and Cinesias talk, and the herald agreed that Sparta will send ambassadors to arrange a treaty. In the wake of this move towards peace, the two choruses reconcile and unite.

Spartan and Athenian ambassadors show up in the same condition as the herald. Lysistrata calls on the goddess Reconciliation, represented by a naked woman, to come out and preside over the peace-making – which succeeds, and is followed by a raucous celebration.

Note: since this is a staged reading, not a theatrical performance, we are using minimal costuming and props; what you don't see, you should imagine.

We are using Sarah Ruden's translation with the generous permission of Hackett.

Cast

Speaking characters

Lysistrata: Emma Mongoven
Calonice: Zoe Fox
Myrrhine: Rachel Tenpenny
Lampito: Vanessa Felso
Men's chorus leader: Jacob Horn
Chorus of old men: William Leeser, Kiran Rajamani, Bret Mulligan, Henning Wrage, Robert Germany
Women's chorus leader: Sasha Agins
Chorus of old women: Alicia Harder, Catherine Divizio, Florencia Foxley, Deborah Roberts, Danielle La Londe
Councilor: James Burvant
Old woman 1: Florencia Foxley
Old woman 2: Danielle La Londe
Old woman 3: Deborah Roberts
Woman 1: Alicia Harder
Woman 2: Catherine Divizio
Woman 3: Sasha Agins
Cinesias: Matthew Da Silva
Cinesias' Baby: Bret Mulligan
Spartan Herald: Matt Holmes
United Chorus: members of both choruses (and anyone else who wants to join in)
United Chorus leader: Jacob Horn
Spartan Ambassador: Matt Holmes
Athenian Ambassador 1: Lucian Grand
Athenian Ambassador 2: Connor Odekirk

Nonspeaking characters

Athenian women: Alicia Harder, Florencia Foxley
Boeotian woman: Catherine Divizio
Corinthian woman: Sasha Agins
Spartan women: Danielle La Londe, Deborah Roberts
Scythian Guard, slaves, etc,: Bret Mulligan, Henning Wrage, Robert Germany, William Leeser, Kiran Ramajani
Reconciliation: Danielle La Londe
Piper: Deborah Roberts

Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Thousands of Changes. One Day.

For our fifth annual Classics Marathon, faculty and students gathered on October 28 (from 8 AM to 8 PM) for a public participatory reading of Ovid’sMetamorphoses, a series of variations on the theme of change and a master storyteller’s masterwork.

Aeschylus' Oresteia. 3 Plays. A Whole Lot of Murder. One Evening.

For our fourth annual Classics Marathon, dozens of students and faculty gathered for a continuous staged reading of Aeschylus' Oresteia.

Vergil's Aeneid. 12 Books. One Day.

For our third annual Classics Marathon, dozens of students and faculty gathered over almost 10 hours to hear and participate in a recitation of Vergil'sAeneid. Professor Mulligan kicked off the event around 11 a.m. with arma virumque cano. An uninterrupted succession of students and faculty followed throughout the day, with reading wrapping up around 7 p.m. Thank you to all who made the day such a moving experience!

lato's Symposium. 8 Speeches. A Whole Lotta Love. One Night.

For our second annual Classics Marathon, ten lovers of sophia gathered for a reading of Plato's Symposium. The setting is a party held to honor the tragedian Agathon for his first victorious production.  At the outset of the celebration, the participants agree to forego drink (at least for the moment) and to trade a series of speeches on the subject of love and sexual desire.  The ensuing speeches are by turns bawdy, lofty, comic, and spiritually moving, and they go on until the late-night intrusion of a drunken visitor transforms the whole gathering.

George Reuter kicked off the event around 4:30 p.m. and our discussion of love and wisdom wrapped up around 7:30. Thank you to all who made the event such a rousing success!

Cast of Characters

Apollodorus: narrator of the dialogue. He heard the story of the symposium from Aristodemus.
George Reuter

A Friend of Apollodorus
Ravi Sharma

Phaedrus: handsome companion of Socrates who suggests that guests should speak about love.
Bret Mulligan

Pausanias: lover of Agathon.
Andrew Smith

Eryximachus: a rather pompous doctor, who is insistent on maintaining order at the symposium.
Peter Barish

Aristophanes: a famous comic playwright.
Willy Lebowitz

Agathon: an important tragedian who is celebrating his first victory in dramatic competition; young, beautiful, and clever with words.
Evan Rodriguez

Socrates: the famous philosopher and protagonist in most of Plato’s dialogues; here a bit of a flirt, although unswayed by sexual advances and alcohol.
Aryeh Kosman

Diotima: a woman from Mantinea who taught Socrates about Love.
Deborah Roberts

Alcibiades: one of the most notorious and charismatic leaders of Athens. Brilliant but amoral, he is here a friendly drunk with a strong attraction for Socrates.
Jacob Carroll

Homer's Odyssey. Ten Years Lost. 108 Suitors. 12,110 Lines. One Day.

For our inaugural Classics Marathon, over a hundred students and faculty gathered over almost 12 hours to hear a recitation of Homer's Odyssey. Professor Roberts kicked off the event around 8:30 a.m. with a rousing reading of the proem in Greek. An uninterrupted succession of students and faculty followed throughout the day, with reading wrapping up around 7 p.m. Thank you to all who made the day such a rousing success!