Four Figures from Ancient Greece course
£65.00
Further to our wonderful “Odyssey” and Greek Tragedy courses with David Huggon, he returns to Red Lion Books in November 2026 with a new workshop
Four Figures from Ancient Greece course
You do not need to have any background knowledge. One book is included in this booking: Penguin edition of Plato’s Symposium
Contents of the course
Week One
20 minutes Introduction to Ancient Greek alphabetFollowed by…Sappho the poet of Lesbos. What do we know about her? Why was her poetry redacted, and what do we still have? Readings of extracts of her poetry.Week Two
20 minutes Consolidation of Ancient Greek alphabetFollowed by…Socrates the philosopher. What were his principles, and why was he so revered? Readings from Plato’s Symposium. What led to his execution in 399BC?Week Three
20 minutes Basic sentences in Ancient Greek.Followed by…Aristophanes.The career and the genius of the comic poet who won so many prizes in the theatre festivals. Extracts from Plato’s Symposium in which Aristophanes defines love. Extracts from Lysistrata in which Athenian women stage a sex strike in order to stop men going to war.Week Four
20 minutes More basic sentences in Ancient Greek.Followed by…Dionysus, god of mystery and revelry. Where did he come from, and how did the Greeks celebrate him eg the outlandish Anthesteria festival and the City Dionysia? Extracts from Ovid Metamorphoses and Euripides The Bacchae.Penguin edition of Plato’s Symposium which links Socrates and Aristophanes very nicely.
“Perhaps the most entertaining work of philosophy ever written … the first really systematic and serious attempt to say what love is” John Armstrong, Guardian. In the course of a lively drinking party, a group of Athenian intellectuals (notably Socrates and Aristophanes) exchange views on eros, or desire. From their conversation emerges a series of subtle reflections on gender roles, sex in society and the sublimation of basic human instincts.
TUESDAY MORNINGS
- 10am-11.30am Limited spaces
- 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th November 2026
David: “I retired three years ago from the Colchester Sixth Form College where I taught Classical Civilisation A level for 30 years. I have been an enthusiast of the ancient world ever since I was a teenager and a great devotee of Homer. My degree (back in the dark ages) was in Classics and French”
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