This course offers an introduction to essential moments in the history and literature of ancient Greece, from its rise to the end of the Classical period (that is, roughly, from Homer to Plato). Students will read and learn how to interpret (and critique) literary masterpieces that laid the foundation of Western civilization—the works of Homer, Hesiod, Sappho, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, and Plato. As we explore the engagement of these texts with their historical contexts, and vice versa, bringing out the cultural forces that shaped both, students will gain a sense of the continuities and discontinuities between Greek culture and our own. The course will have a twofold structure: a 50-minute lecture three times a week and a mandatory discussion section.