Foundations of Western Culture: Homer to Dante
A literature survey from MIT OpenCourseWare that reads across the ancient and medieval worlds, tracing recurring images, themes, and philosophical questions from Homer to Dante. Readings include Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, Dante's Inferno, Aeschylus's Oresteia, the Icelandic Njals saga, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Marie de France's Lais, Virgil's Aeneid, and the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf. The course groups texts by theme rather than strict chronology, pairing adventure narratives, courtroom dramas, love poetry, and war epics to test what terms like Antiquity and the Middle Ages actually mean and where the boundary between them falls. Materials include the syllabus and reading list as published on MIT OpenCourseWare, suited to independent study of the primary texts alongside guiding discussion questions. No certificate is offered, consistent with OCW's open publication of MIT course materials.