**You may develop your own paper topic & thesis, provided you discuss this with me in advance of writing your paper**
General Guidelines for CLAS 301B Papers
1. Catullus 68b, addressed to Allius, is one of Catullus' most intriguing poems (a, ssuming it is a separate poem from 68a). Analyze its images and ideas to argue what it ultimately seems to be about thematically – is its central focus the Roman domus ("house") and perhaps such associated concepts as obligation, place, separation, memory, security, permanence, et al.?
2. Does Terence's Eunuchus seem to critique traditional Roman concepts of (hyper-)masculinity? You will want to discuss the circumstances of the rape, including the ekphrasis of the Jupiter/Danaë painting, as well as whatever else in the play seems relevant to you.
3. Analyze how Lucretius in On the Nature of Things 6.1138-1286 adapts his primary Greece source text in book 2 of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (PDF of Thucydides 2.47-54). How does the Epicurean Lucretius adopt the 5th century BCE historiographer's account of the Athenian plague (430 BCE) for his philosophical and poetic purposes to bring On the Nature of Things to its powerful end?
4. Analyze Vergil's appropriation of Lucretius' account of the plague, i.e. the ending of On the Nature of Things, at Georgics 3.478-566. How has Vergil reframed, repurposed, applied or otherwise adapted his Lucretian source to suit the new context at the end of this book on animal husbandry?
5. Plautus' Pseudolus provides a brilliant example of the clever comic slave, who, despite occupying the lowest rung of the social ladder in (historical/real) Roman life, can take complete control of a play, and owing to his creative powers defeat and even humiliate his social superiors (if only for a temporary victory). Compare and contrast Pseudolus with a character from film or some other form of modern fiction, such as television, who seems to function in similar ways as Pseudolus in her/his medium.
6. Compare and contrast a modern film of your choice with Casina that similarly combines elements such as comic deception and disguise, cross-dressing, and subversive marriage with themes of power, sexuality, and gender.
7. How are (human) female characters represented in the Aeneid? To what extent does the Aeneid explore the individual psychologies of its female figures? You will probably want to focus on major (human) characters, such as Dido and/or Camilla, but you may also consider some of the less extensively represented female characters (some of whom are not even named).
8. Aeneid 11, perhaps more so than any other book of Vergil’s epic, is largely focused on the grief of those affected by the deaths of warriors, and temporarily shifts some of the poem’s emphasis away from battle. What overall effect does this focus on bereavement and the memorialization of loss and trauma have on you as a reader of the Aeneid? What role(s) do loss of, and mourning for the dead play in Vergil’s poem?