Topic 1. Compare and contrast the stories of the UNIVERSAL FLOOD in Genesis, chapters 6: 5-8:22 and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 1 (online). Substitute the same in the Epic of Gilgamesh (see Morford p. 108 and Dalley’s book in Bibliography, p. 110)
Topic 2. Compare and contrast the story of Io in Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound (in Greek Tragedies Vol. 1) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 1, lines 568-749 (see above; online)
Sample questions: where do the two myths take place? who does what to whom? how are the characters portrayed? is there comedy in either text? what do you think of Zeus’s/Jupiter’s behavior in either text? what happens to Io in the end?
Topic 3. Compare and contrast the story of Hippolytus in Euripides’ Hippolytus (in Greek Tragedies Vol. 1) and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 15, lines 492-551 (see above; online)
Sample questions: where do the two myths take place? who does what to whom? how are the characters portrayed? is there comedy in either text? what do you think of Diana’s (=Cynthia’s) behavior in either text? what happens to Phaedra and Hippolytus in the end?
Topic 4. Discuss the motif “Potiphar’s wife” in Genesis chapter 39, Euripides’ Hippolytus (in Greek Tragedies Vol. 1) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book 15, lines 492-551 (see above; online)
Sample questions: how is Phaedra portrayed in Hippolytus? what causes her to behave as she does? what happens to her as a result of her actions? how is the “designing woman” portrayed in the other two stories?