Credit Points 10

Coordinator David Burchell Opens in new window

Description The cultures and intellectual life of Ancient Greece and Rome influenced European life and thought for much of the succeeding two thousand years. But the greatest influence came with the ‘classical revival’ of the 1400s through to the 1700s, beginning with the ‘Renaissance’. This subject outlines several key themes in Ancient Culture: moral and political philosophy, literature, history, and rhetoric and the art of speaking, It then traces the later careers and revivals of these themes in the period 1400-1700.

School Humanities & Comm Arts

Discipline History

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 4 10cp

Check your fees via the Fees page.

Level Undergraduate Level 2 subject

Restrictions

Successful completion of 40 credit points in the student’s current enrolled program.

Learning Outcomes

After successful completion of this subject, students will be able to: 

1. Critically assess the thought in a variety of disciplines in Ancient and Early Modern culture
2. Interpret and analyse primary historical sources.
3. Evaluate some of the key historiographic debates around the revival of Classical thought in the Renaissance and afterwards.
4. Discuss the survival and revival of Classical culture into the early modern and modern worlds.

Subject Content

• Ancient philosophy, literature and rhetoric in Ancient Athens and Rome
• Key Ancient philosophical figures and schools; key literary and rhetorical texts
• The Renaissance and the Western revival of classical learning
• Variant schools of thought on Classical culture in the 16th and 17th Centuries: ‘neo-Stoicism’
• The reaction against Classical political thought in the 17th Century
• ‘Republicanism’ and its impact on political thought
• The ‘Battle between the Ancients and Moderns’
• The survival and influence of Ancient politics in an era of Revolutions