OSHER 137 - The Matter of Rome

Previous Osher courses in this series have covered The Matter of Britain (King Arthur) and The Matter of France (Charlemagne). This course will cover the third of the three great traditional "matters" of medieval literature, The Matter of Rome. Join us to explore how (mostly) French literature dealt with the great Greek and Roman epics, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, and heroes, Alexander, Caesar, Troilus, "Sir Orfeo," and others. Europeans had very little of the classical literature in the original. Consequently, they were relatively free to use their imagination in recreating the great myths and stories. The results are entertaining and instructive, as we will see.