One example of an activity combining literary and iconographic resources using Perseus
by Mireille de Biasi, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it



From October to the end of January 2001, within the context of the Ancient Languages competition organised by the Academy of Clermont Ferrand, our students had to conduct autonomous research on the theme of the Bull, and in particular on the Myth of Europa. As we wanted such a preparation to be included in our optional course, after this autonomous research on the part of students (involving mythology, use of dictionaries, CD-ROMs and selected Internet sites, inter alia) we decided to create a corpus of authentic literary texts and an iconographic database. The educational objective is as follows: based on this work, students must draw up a data sheet where they establish a relationship between an excerpt from a literary text and a work of art, or an archaeological object, while specifying the reasons for doing so. The data sheet is then sent to the teacher by email.

Selecting and assembling the texts

The teacher makes up a selection of texts from the The Perseus Digital Library (http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cache/perscoll_Greco-Roman.html). This type of work is too difficult for junior high-school students. The collecting of the texts is done in several stages.

1. General research using the keyword Europa.

The database presents a selection of pictures of archaeological objects, reference articles, and quotation sources.
2. The list of sources should first be displayed, before the results from the proposed database are examined.

The teacher may read these texts in their Greek or English language versions, though if the correct fonts are not present on his computer, he may have to download a font from the Perseus website to display the text correctly (there is information on how to do this on the CIRCE website, http://www.circe.be). In order to make up the selection of texts, he should be able simply to copy and paste them into a document previously created on his computer. He will then build the selection of texts according to his teaching needs.

The Perseus Digital Library does not offer all the texts concerning the Myth of Europa that one would expect to find, working from references found in the Grimal Dictionary of Mythology. We had to include some texts published by Éditions Budé. The selection of texts thus established is then presented to the students in a bilingual French-Greek version whenever possible, or in a Greek-English bilingual version. We do indeed train our students to discover the Greek language just as Champollion did with hieroglyphs, that is by constant cross-reading between the original text and its translation in other languages, French and English in this case...

Naturally, the students are informed about the existing copyright for each of the texts and for each essential work. This particular matter is the subject of a special class that must be passed at the end of the third junior high-school year ("B2i" or Computer and Internet Diploma).

Putting the assembled texts to use with the Students

This is done in different stages:

1. Collective research for discovering the Myth with the help of the data sheet prepared previously by the teacher, using the texts and iconographic corpus. The Myth should be discovered from:
• a motif on an Apulian cup[1] dating from the 4^th century BC, and reading and commenting on the translation of the A Scholia of the Iliad, where certain words will be studied (highlighted in colour).The A Scholia of the Iliad tells in XII 2921 the story of the loves of Zeus and Europa, according to Hesiod and Bacchylides
• the works of Liberale da Verona[2] (images and their captions taken from [Louvre.edu]) and the study of a short excerpt from the Idylls of Moschos in its Greek and translated versions. Students learn a first approach to the analysis of the image in a work, based on antiquity: they must subsequently understand the representation of an ancient mythological scene in a universe corresponding to the world of the XV^th Century and its connection with an ancient poem.
2. The students' own autonomous work, as individuals or as a team, with the help of a data sheet. It will then be their turn to build an HTML format data sheet, which they will forward to the teacher via email. In this sheet they will establish a connection between a work from the iconographic selection and an excerpt from the Literary selection, while fully explaining the reasons for their choice. The instructions for this work follow overleaf

AUTONOMOUS WORK: CREATING A EUROPA DATA-SHEET

I- Preparation

1- Open the Eurimage file in the Europa folder. Look at the pictures, then choose one and write down its reference.
2- Next open the file EuroTextGrec. Read the texts, select an excerpt you like, and write down its reference.
3- Do the text and the picture match? You may change either one.

II- Producing the Document

3.   Another exercise would consist of choosing within the selections a text and its English translation, presenting them in a table and showing, with a special font colour, the vocabulary or the sections which the French student understands in Greek and English. This is a good way to evaluate the student's ability to cross-reference.

[1] The Rape of Europa (330-320 B.C.), Apulian cup with red figures by the Patera painter, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Ancient Mythology CDRom (ODA Édition). 

[2] Liberale da Verona, The Rape of Europa, panel, 39 cm x 118 cm, Louvre.edu, photograph by Béatrice Oravec.