Course outline
Module 1
Module 1: The Iliad and the Anger of Achilles
The Iliad and the Anger of Achilles
Knowledge check
Q1. What is the central subject of the opening line of the Iliad?
- A. The founding of Troy
- B. The wrath of Achilles ✓
- C. The return journey of Odysseus
- D. The beauty of Helen
Why: The Iliad opens by announcing its theme as the wrath (mēnis) of Achilles and its disastrous consequences for the Achaeans. This anger drives the poem's action from start to finish.
Q2. What triggers the quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon at the start of the poem?
- A. A dispute over a share of plunder from Troy
- B. Agamemnon's seizure of Achilles' horses
- C. Agamemnon's demand for Chryseis, a captive woman, after he returns Chryses' daughter to her father ✓
- D. Achilles' refusal to fight after the death of Patroclus
Why: Agamemnon must give up Chryseis, the daughter of Apollo's priest Chryses, to end a plague. He then demands Achilles' prize, Briseis, in compensation, which sparks Achilles' fury.
Q3. What does Achilles threaten to do in response to Agamemnon's demand for Briseis?
- A. Sail home to Phthia and abandon the war ✓
- B. Challenge Agamemnon to single combat
- C. Join the Trojans in battle
- D. Appeal to Zeus to destroy the Achaean army
Why: In his rage, Achilles considers killing Agamemnon but is restrained by Athena. He withdraws from the fighting and withholds his service, and he also threatens to sail home to Phthia.
Q4. Which character is Achilles' mother, the divine goddess who intercedes with Zeus on his behalf?
- A. Hera
- B. Athena
- C. Thetis ✓
- D. Aphrodite
Why: Thetis, a sea goddess, is Achilles' mother. She asks Zeus to honor her son by turning the tide of battle against the Achaeans, which he does.
Q5. Why does Achilles finally return to battle in the Iliad?
- A. He is persuaded by Agamemnon's gifts alone
- B. Hector kills his closest companion Patroclus, who was fighting in Achilles' armor ✓
- C. Zeus orders him directly to fight
- D. He wishes to win Briseis back by force
Why: When Patroclus, wearing Achilles' armor, is killed by Hector, Achilles' grief and desire for vengeance overwhelm his anger at Agamemnon, bringing him back into the fighting.
Module 2
Module 2: Classical Epic and the Glory of War
Classical Epic and the Glory of War
Knowledge check
Q1. In Homer's Iliad, what is the central cause of Achilles' withdrawal from the fighting?
- A. He is wounded by an arrow from Paris
- B. Agamemnon takes his war prize, Briseis ✓
- C. He is ordered home by his father Peleus
- D. He learns that Patroclus has been killed
Why: Agamemnon seizes Briseis, Achilles' war prize, after being forced to surrender Chryseis. This insult to Achilles' honor (timē) prompts his withdrawal, which drives much of the epic's early action.
Q2. Which concept most closely describes the heroic value that Greek epic warriors pursued in battle?
- A. Piety (eusebeia)
- B. Kleos, or lasting glory and renown ✓
- C. Temperance (sōphrosynē)
- D. Hospitality (xenia) alone
Why: Kleos is the imperishable fame won through deeds that is remembered and sung by later generations. Epic heroes like Achilles explicitly trade a short life for undying kleos.
Q3. In the Iliad, what choice does Achilles famously describe to Thetis regarding his destiny?
- A. To live a long, quiet life in Phthia
- B. To become a merchant on the coast
- C. To have a short life but everlasting glory ✓
- D. To abandon war and become a priest
Why: Achilles tells Thetis that his fate offers two paths: a long, obscure life at home or a brief life with imperishable kleos at Troy. He chooses glory, accepting an early death.
Q4. Which Roman epic, composed in the Augustan period, offers a national and imperial counterpart to the Homeric tradition of war?
- A. The Odyssey
- B. The Argonautica
- C. The Aeneid ✓
- D. The Theogony
Why: Virgil's Aeneid follows Aeneas, a Trojan refugee who founds the Roman race in Italy. It adapts Homeric warfare to celebrate Rome's destiny and the duties of empire, often with a more melancholy tone.
Q5. What is the significance of the Iliad's final scene, in which Priam ransoms the body of Hector from Achilles?
- A. It shows the Greeks retreating in defeat
- B. It reveals Achilles' own death is imminent
- C. It brings a humane moment of shared grief between enemies ✓
- D. It demonstrates that Troy has won the war
Why: Priam and Achilles weep together for their lost sons and fathers, a moment of pity that humanizes both sides and closes the epic on mourning rather than triumph.
Module 3
Module 3: Medieval Chivalry and the Song of Roland
Medieval Chivalry and the Song of Roland
Knowledge check
Q1. In the Old French epic The Song of Roland, what is the primary setting of the central battle?
- A. The walls of Constantinople
- B. The Pass of Roncevaux in the Pyrenees ✓
- C. The plains of Troy
- D. The city of Paris
Why: The Song of Roland centers on the rearguard action at the Pass of Roncevaux (Roncesvalles) in the Pyrenees, where Roland's forces are ambushed by Basques as Charlemagne's army returns from Spain.
Q2. Who is Roland's closest companion and fellow paladin in the Song of Roland?
- A. Ganelon
- B. Oliver ✓
- C. Turpin
- D. Naimes
Why: Oliver is Roland's close friend and fellow peer of France. Their friendship and eventual conflict over whether to sound the oliphant horn is a central dramatic element of the poem.
Q3. Why does Roland refuse to sound his horn Olifant for much of the battle?
- A. He has lost the horn in the fighting
- B. He is too proud to ask Charlemagne for help ✓
- C. He believes the horn is cursed
- D. He wants to save it as a gift for the king
Why: Roland's pride (superbia) prevents him from summoning Charlemagne's army until it is nearly too late. His refusal to sound the horn is presented as a fatal flaw that reflects the tension between personal honor and collective duty.
Q4. Which character is blamed for betraying Roland and arranging the ambush at Roncevaux?
- A. Marsile
- B. Ganelon ✓
- C. Baligant
- D. Aude
Why: Ganelon, Roland's stepfather, is blamed for the betrayal. He conspires with the Saracen king Marsile to have Roland's rearguard ambushed, and he is later executed for treason after a trial by combat.
Q5. What does the concept of chivalry emphasize in the Song of Roland?
- A. Commercial trade and wealth accumulation
- B. Loyalty to lord, courage in battle, and Christian faith ✓
- C. Scholarly learning and philosophical debate
- D. Democratic participation in governance
Why: Medieval chivalry in the Song of Roland values feudal loyalty to one's lord, martial courage, and devotion to Christianity. Roland's willingness to die a holy death for Charlemagne and his faith embodies these ideals.
Module 4
Module 4: Early Modern Battlefields in Verse
Early Modern Battlefields in Verse
Knowledge check
Q1. Which epic poem by Homer is the earliest major work of Western war literature and centres on the Greek siege of Troy?
- A. The Odyssey
- B. The Iliad ✓
- C. The Aeneid
- D. The Divine Comedy
Why: The Iliad, traditionally attributed to Homer, narrates events in the tenth year of the Trojan War, focusing on the wrath of Achilles. It is the foundational text of Western war literature.
Q2. Which Roman poet wrote the Aeneid, an epic that follows a Trojan hero's journey and his eventual war in Italy?
- A. Ovid
- B. Horace
- C. Virgil ✓
- D. Lucan
Why: Virgil composed the Aeneid in the late first century BCE. It follows Aeneas from the fall of Troy to the founding of the Roman lineage, including the violent conflict in Latium.
Q3. Which English poem of the seventeenth century, by John Milton, depicts a cosmic war between God's angels and the rebel forces led by Satan?
- A. The Faerie Queene
- B. Paradise Lost ✓
- C. Hudibras
- D. Samson Agonistes
Why: Paradise Lost (1667) presents an epic battle in Heaven between loyal angels and Satan's rebels, with vivid martial description, and is a major example of early modern epic verse about warfare.
Q4. Which Italian Renaissance epic by Torquato Tasso concerns the First Crusade and the capture of Jerusalem?
- A. Orlando Furioso
- B. Jerusalem Delivered ✓
- C. The Lusiads
- D. Orlando Innamorato
Why: Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered, 1581) recounts the Christian army's campaign against Jerusalem during the First Crusade, blending heroic combat with romance.
Q5. Which Portuguese epic by Luís de Camões celebrates Vasco da Gama's voyage to India and the nation's maritime battles?
- A. The Lusiads ✓
- B. Os Sertões
- C. The Cid
- D. Os Lusíadas Revisited
Why: Camões published The Lusiads (Os Lusíadas) in 1572. It celebrates Portuguese exploration and naval combat, and is a central work of early modern epic poetry on war and empire.
Module 5
Module 5: The Romantic Soldier and Poetry of the Front
The Romantic Soldier and Poetry of the Front
Knowledge check
Q1. Which poet is most closely associated with the 'Romantic soldier' ideal in English war poetry of the First World War, often remembered for the sonnet 'The Soldier'?
- A. Wilfred Owen
- B. Rupert Brooke ✓
- C. Siegfried Sassoon
- D. Isaac Rosenberg
Why: Rupert Brooke's sonnet sequence 1914, including 'The Soldier' ('If I should die, think only this of me...'), presents war as noble sacrifice and the soldier as an idealized, patriotic figure. His idealism contrasts sharply with the disillusioned verse of Owen and Sassoon.
Q2. Which of the following is a key feature of 'Poetry of the Front' as distinct from earlier heroic war verse?
- A. Its focus on distant, abstract accounts of battle strategy
- B. Its direct depiction of the physical and psychological experience of combat ✓
- C. Its celebration of royal leadership and national glory
- D. Its use of classical epic meter exclusively
Why: Poetry of the Front emphasizes eyewitness experience: mud, gas, fear, wounds, and trauma. It replaces the distant heroic perspective of earlier war poetry with the grim realities felt by ordinary soldiers at the front line.
Q3. Wilfred Owen's poem 'Dulce et Decorum Est' is best known for which central argument?
- A. That war brings out the best in young men
- B. That dying for one's country is a noble and fitting honour
- C. That the glorification of war conceals its horrific reality ✓
- D. That soldiers should be rewarded with land after the war
Why: Owen's poem describes a gas attack and ends by directly addressing the reader, rejecting the Latin phrase 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' ('It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country') as a 'lie' that conceals the suffering of war.
Q4. Which term describes the idealised, often sentimental portrayal of soldiers and warfare common in early twentieth-century literature before the reality of trench warfare was widely understood?
- A. Naturalism
- B. Modernism
- C. Romanticism of war ✓
- D. Imagism
Why: The Romanticism of war refers to the idealization of combat as a source of glory, camaraderie, and self-fulfilment. This tradition, which descends from older heroic and Romantic ideals, was challenged by the brutal experience of the trenches.
Q5. Which poet, himself a soldier, wrote 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' as a reflection on the mass slaughter of young men and the absence of traditional funeral rites?
- A. Edward Thomas
- B. Robert Graves
- C. Wilfred Owen ✓
- D. Ivor Gurney
Why: Wilfred Owen wrote 'Anthem for Doomed Youth' in 1917, contrasting the grand, ritual mourning traditionally given to the dead with the impersonal slaughter of soldiers, for whom there are no church bells or formal rites, only 'the pallor of girls' brows' and the 'drawing-down of blinds.'
Module 6
Module 6: Modernist Trenches: Memory and Trauma
Modernist Trenches: Memory and Trauma
Knowledge check
Q1. Which modernist poem by Wilfred Owen is known for its critique of the myth of dying 'sweet and fitting' for one's country?
- A. In Flanders Fields
- B. Dulce et Decorum Est ✓
- C. The Waste Land
- D. Break of Day in the Trenches
Why: Dulce et Decorum Est (1917/1920) takes its title from Horace's line 'It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country' and reverses it, depicting a gas attack to expose the falsehood of that patriotic ideal.
Q2. Which term, popularised by psychiatrists studying veterans of the First World War, describes the psychological condition caused by exposure to combat trauma?
- A. Survivor's guilt
- B. Shell shock ✓
- C. Melancholia
- D. Hysteria
Why: 'Shell shock' was the common term for combat-related psychological trauma during and after WWI. Modernist writers and later scholars examined how it linked bodily and mental wounds and questioned official responses to it.
Q3. Which novel by Erich Maria Remarque, published in 1929, follows a group of German schoolboys who enlist in the First World War?
- A. Goodbye to All That
- B. All Quiet on the Western Front ✓
- C. Storm of Steel
- D. A Farewell to Arms
Why: All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) portrays the dehumanising experience of trench warfare through the eyes of Paul Bäumer, one of a class of students persuaded to enlist, and it became a defining text of the war's memory.
Q4. In Modernist war writing, what does the technique of fragmented narrative primarily aim to convey?
- A. A linear and orderly account of military campaigns
- B. The disjointed, non-linear experience of trauma and memory ✓
- C. Precise historical records of battles
- D. Heroic celebration of national victory
Why: Modernist writers used fragmentation, shifting perspectives and non-chronological structure to mirror how traumatic memory returns in broken pieces, resisting the coherent heroic narratives of earlier war writing.
Q5. Which Modernist poem by T. S. Eliot, published in 1922, uses fragmented voices and images of a shattered post-war landscape?
- A. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
- B. The Waste Land ✓
- C. Four Quartets
- D. Ash Wednesday
Why: The Waste Land (1922) is a fragmented, multi-voiced poem reflecting the spiritual and cultural devastation after the First World War, and it is widely read as a key Modernist response to the trauma of the conflict.
Module 7
Module 7: Contemporary War Fiction and Its Afterlives
Contemporary War Fiction and Its Afterlives
Knowledge check
Q1. Which of the following best describes a central concern of contemporary war fiction, as distinct from earlier war writing?
- A. A focus on heroic battlefield victories and national glory
- B. A focus on the moral ambiguity of violence and the psychological aftereffects experienced by soldiers and civilians ✓
- C. A focus on divine intervention determining the outcome of conflicts
- D. A focus on detailed military strategy and tactical maneuvers
Why: Contemporary war fiction often explores moral ambiguity, trauma, and the lasting psychological and social effects of war, rather than celebrating heroism or strategy as earlier epics often did.
Q2. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried (1990) is often discussed for blurring the line between fact and fiction. What term describes this technique?
- A. Metafiction ✓
- B. Epic simile
- C. Stream of consciousness
- D. Chorus
Why: Metafiction is writing that draws attention to its own fictional nature. O'Brien famously insists on the 'truth' of his stories while openly admitting invention, a hallmark of his metafictional approach.
Q3. What is meant by the 'afterlives' of war fiction in a course on the subject?
- A. The religious beliefs soldiers hold after death
- B. The ways war texts are read, adapted, taught, and reinterpreted across time and culture ✓
- C. The historical period following a war's official end
- D. The cost of rebuilding infrastructure after conflict
Why: The afterlives of war literature refer to its continuing influence through adaptation, classroom study, film versions, and changing critical readings across generations.
Q4. Which contemporary war novel is narrated partly from the perspective of a Vietnamese character, challenging the American-centered view typical of earlier Vietnam War fiction?
- A. Dispatches by Michael Herr
- B. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen ✓
- C. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
- D. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Why: Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer (2015) is narrated by a half-Vietnamese, half-French communist spy, offering a perspective rarely centered in earlier American Vietnam War fiction.
Q5. Why do many contemporary war writers emphasize the perspective of ordinary soldiers and civilians rather than generals or political leaders?
- A. Because generals and leaders rarely appear in literature
- B. To reveal how wars are experienced at the human level and to question official narratives of conflict ✓
- C. Because ordinary people are easier to write about than leaders
- D. To celebrate the bravery of commanding officers
Why: Focusing on ordinary individuals allows writers to expose the human costs of war and to challenge the official, often sanitized accounts produced by political and military authorities.