3 hours; 3 credits

Narratives of exile and the struggle to get home will be the focus of this  class: background reading will include selections from the Bible, Homer's  Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid to prepare for fuller study of Omeros (1990) by  the 1992 Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Parallels will be sought with other writings from the Caribbean.

Two reports comparing elements in and delivered in class then handed in for comment. One final longer report on works assigned or discovered by the student and inviting comparison with the assigned works.
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Prerequisite: Core Studies 1 or permission from the instructor.

Topics & Themes:
 Loss of  homeland & the struggle to return have shaped narratives that run from the early stories of creation down to the present day. This course will look at the Bible & with the story of the expulsion from Paradise & the wanderings of the Jewish people, exiled and enslaved in Egypt, then delivered.
 Next, shifting to the broader context of the Mediterraean sea, we will consider the plot & some of the values of Homer'sOdyssey. Its appropriation & revision in the context of Roman imperial history will be the next topic, illustrated with selections from Virgil's Aeneid.
 Leaping to the legacy of Rome in the residue of empire & colonialism, the course will next consider a powerful & prophetic call for new values, The Notebook of Return to the Land of Birthby Aime/ Ce/saire.
 Against this complex background, the course will conclude by reading Omeros (1990), the epic by Derek Walcott (Nobel Laureate 1992), which brings together themes of  the search for paradise in the Caribbean setting, the quest for roots in Africa, & the failure to find an identity in exile in the cities of empire in the North.
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Course Syllabus

Week I
Topic: Narratives of Exile & Return -- typical themes & experiences.
Readings:  Bible, Genesis & Exodus

Week 2
Topic: The City, Heroines & Heros
Readings:  Iliad, Books 3, 6, 22; Odyssey, Books 1 & 4.

Week 3
Topic: Class perspectives on Adventure, Descent to the world of death
Reading: Odyssey,  Books 9, 10,11,12

Week 4
Topic: Adventure coopted by Roman History: 'prophecy' as the ideology of Empire
Readings: Aeneid, Books 1, 6, 8

Week 5
Topic: 'Prophecy' against empire, Declaring a new force
Reading: Aime/ Cesaire/, Notebook of Return to the Land of Birth
First essay due

Week 6
Topic: 'Prophecy' evolves to Narrative -- roots of plots: exile, wounds, enslavement, paradise lost
Reading: Omeros, Book One, Chapters I-IX

Week 7
Topic: Plots unfold into quests, 'prophecy' as poetic program (Poet's Father's Ghost)
Reading: Omeros,  Book  One, Chapters X-XIII

Week 8
Topic: Love Rewrites History as Herstory
Reading: Omeros Book Two

Week 9
Topic: A Quest for Identity in Return to Africa / Poet's Mother's Blessing
Reading: Omeros, Book Three

Week 10
Topic:  Unsettled in the Heart of America / Native American Autumn
Reading: Omeros, Book  Four
Second essay due

Week 11
Topic: Touring Cities of Empire / Winter of  Discontent
Reading: Omeros, Book Five

Week 12
Topic: Island Paradise Regained & Lost
Reading: Omeros, Book Six

Week 13
Topic: The Poet's Homecoming & Descent to Hell
Readings: Dante, Inferno (selections), Omeros, Book Seven, Chapters LVI-LX

Week 14
Topic: The Poet's Funeral & the Island's Life
Reading: Omeros, Book Seven, Chapters LX-LXIV
Final Paper due  in lieu of examination
.
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Required Texts: Bible[any edition]; Homer [click here for further information], Iliad & Odyssey (translated by Richmond Lattimore); Virgil [click here for further information], Aeneid (translated by Robert Fitzgerald ): Dante, Inferno [translated by Robert Pinsky, Bilingual edition (April 1996) Noonday Press ; ISBN: 0374524521, or buy used through Amazon]; Ce/saire, Notebook of Return ;[handouts]; Walcott, Omeros .[Noonday Press 1992; ISBN: 0-374-52350-9]
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Professor John B. Van Sickle
E-mail & Web-page:
Click here to send mail to
jvsickle@brooklyn.cuny.edu
[Click here to go to
Professor's web-page with scholarship, teaching, reading, travel]

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