Required texts:

• Diane Thompson. The Trojan War: Literature and Legends from the Bronze Age to the Present (this is the textbook for the course)

• Homer. Iliad (any translation that you like--there are many; Lattimore or Fagles are my favorite translations)

After you read Homer's Iliad, you will have many choices for your reading and Activities (10 total). Consequently, different students will use different texts, depending on their choices. Here is a basic guideline for those choices, although you will find many alternative readings listed in each Area Activity List.

You may order your books and materials from the NVCC bookstores. See http://eli.nvcc.edu/books for complete direction.

Choose one or more texts from this list of Troy literature that corresponds to Areas on the Troy Web: 

• A Classical Greek Troy Drama: select from: Agamemnon, Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia in Tauris, Trojan Women (Greek Drama Area)

• Virgil's Aeneid (Virgil Area)

• Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde (Chaucer Area)

• Racine's Iphigenia (Racine Area)

• Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida (Shakespeare Area)

• Goethe's Iphigenia or Kleist's Penthesilea (Goethe Area)

For the last unit of the course, choose one contemporary Troy play, non-fiction book, or novel from either the Troy Stories Today: Women and Goddesses Area or the Troy Stories Today: Literary and Popular Culture Area.

If you are interested in feminist visions of Troy, I recommend:

• Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country

• Zimmer Bradley's The Firebrand 

If you are interested in serious modern literary visions of Troy, I recommend:

• Joyce's Ulysses (see link to online version on Troy Today: Literary and Popular Culture page)

• any of Mee's Troy-themed plays (see link to online versions on the Troy Today: Literary and Popular Culture page).

If you love science fiction and are curious about a vision of Troy in the far future, I recommend:

• Simmon's Ilium

Other readings are based on your choices as you work through the course materials.

The Story of Troilus

If you are interested in the European Middle Ages, I recommend The Story of Troilus (this link goes to the Amazon.com page offering copies for sale--used and inexpensive or new and still inexpensive). You could do several Activities based on the readings in this book, because it includes four Troilus stories ranging from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. The first two (Benoit and Boccaccio) are in modern translations, but the Chaucer and Henryson are in Middle English. 

Troy Texts on the Internet

Many of the older versions of Troy Stories, such as those by Homer, Greek Dramatists, Virgil, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, are available on the internet as etexts. There are links to relevant etexts on the main page of each  Area.

Etexts are usually older, out of copyright versions of texts. If the original text is not in English, the version on the Internet will be an older translation, and you may find it less attractive to read than more recent  ones. However, most etexts are perfectly acceptable choices for this course, and they are free.

Very few modern Troy texts are on the Internet, but there are inexpensive paperbacks available, which you can order on-line or find in local book stores or libraries. You should select your areas and texts early in the course to allow time to order, receive and read them.

Online Booksellers

I have bought many Troy books, especially the out of print ones, using Online Booksellers. The used Troy books are generally inexpensive and take only a few days to receive.  Buy, download, borrow or order the book(s) you select right away, so you will have them when you are ready.