September 5: Introduction

September 12: Homer, The Iliad, Books 1-4; Tim O'Brien, "How to Tell a True War Story"
1. Though it's mostly about battle The Iliad starts during a relative lull in the fighting. What motivates the Greeks to get fighting again (starting around Book II) ?The easy answer is the gods made them do it, but it's clear that the humans have their own motives for fighting. What motivates men to battle? Why are they willing to risk their lives? What sort of compensation does a warrior receive for fighting? What's "in it" for them? How do the leaders motivate their men to rise up and engage the enemy? What do they say or do that encourages their warriors to fight? What makes men stop fighting? Discuss the motives and circumstances behind the recommencement of the battle in the early books of The Iliad.

2. Tim O'Brien
Paul Fussell discusses, in his essay about WWII, the difficulties of telling a "true" war story. Combat-experienced soldiers particularly are very skeptical about official or published accounts of war, as Fussell writes in "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books." Tim O'Brien writes about how to tell a "true" war story in the story of the same name and then tells a war story in the "Things They Carried." How does "The Things They Carried" tell the truth about war? What is O'Brien's definition of truth in war? Is "The Things They Carried" "true" or is it fiction? How can a story be false and yet still convey truth? Why can't a true war story have a moral? Does "The Things They Carried" have a Moral? Or, at least, some message, some theme? Discuss the truthfulness of O'Brien's story "The Things They Carried" using the standards he describes in "How to Tell a True War Story."

September 19: Homer, The Iliad, Books 5-11; L.T. Meade "For Valour"; Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est, " Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (Read to page 137, Chapter 7)

1. Books 5-11 of The Iliad contain a lot of battle scenes and we get to see much of Homer's depiction of actual combat. What is combat like? What do people (men?) actually do in the act of fighting? What makes some warriors better fighters than others? What is the objective (if any) of the fighting on either side? How do people die in Homer's narrative? How do people kill? Even though The Iliad's combat takes place in ancient times, are there parallels between more contemporary descriptions of combat (such as O'Brien's or Remarque's) and Homer's epic? Provide an overview of the nature of combat as depicted in The Iliad, Books 5-11, possibly compare/contrasting these depictions with more contemporary depictions of combat.

2.Remarque provides an example of wartime for a group of German soldiers on the Western Front in France in WWI. Like most soldiers they are distinguished by there youth; the narrator frequently remarks that most of them were in school before they enlisted in the army. not only does combat seem to have made them "grow up" in hurry, they seem to think of themselves as fundamentally divided from those of an older generation. What separates the war generation from previous ones? what was or is the attitude of older people (particularly in civilian life) about the nature of war? How is contrasted with the attitude of Paul who has experienced it directly? What effect does the war have on his generation? What was Paul's life like before the war? What were his ideas about his future life? How did the war change their attitudes about about life, about death, and about the future?

September 26: Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front (read to end)

The tragic ending of Remarque's novel seems to reinforce it's overall criticism of war as destructive, futile, and dehumanizing. For this reason it has been labeled one of the greatest anti-war novels. Yet does it assign blame to anything in particular for leading nations into war in the first place? Is there any person, group of people, or cultural or social aspect that comes out for special criticism in the novel? Are the generals to blame? The political leaders? Civilians with sentimental notions about war? Is everyone involvedsomehow to blame? Is no one to blame? Are there lessons to be learned for future generations about war? Discuss the question of blame and the causes of the war in All Quiet on the Western Front.