Feeling: Literature in Ancient Greece and India Penn Public Lectures on Classical Antiquity And the Contemporary World

These lectures, presented by Penn’s Department of Classical Studies, explore the representation of feelings in ancient texts, the feelings they produce during the reading or performance, and the experiential responses of audiences and readers to these texts as a whole.

September 9: Anger
Why do ancient epics, in both the Indian and Greek traditions, pay so much attention to anger, especially the anger of men? How does rage relate to other emotions? This lecture will discuss the Indian Ramayana and the Greek Iliad and Odyssey, tracing a connection between emotions and song tradition. The talk will argue that in both ancient traditions, epic draws inspiration from the intersection between rage and other emotions, such as grief and joy.

September 10: Desire
Desire, and especially female desire, has a special place in both ancient Greek and ancient Indian lyric poetry. This lecture will compare the Greek poems and fragments of Sappho with those by women writers of Sanskrit kavya literature from South Asia. The talk will show how and why the emotions of love, lust, and yearning are associated with a particular poetic genre and a particular gender in these ancient traditions.

September 11: Compassion
The thrilling narrative drive of revenge plays a central role in many dramatic traditions, from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. And yet the “deeds of mercy” have an equally central role in serious ancient drama. This talk will show that both ancient Athenian and classical Sanskrit plays have a central interest in how destructive emotions, such as vengeance and jealousy, can be overturned or transformed, and how divine or familial curses can be lifted. Through an examination of ancient Athenian tragedy and the works of the classical Sanskrit playwright, Kalidasa, the talk will show how compassion can become a transformative power in human life.

About the Speaker:

Phiroze Vasunia is Professor of Greek at University College London. He is interested in the comparative study of ancient literature and has written on a range of texts and periods, from antiquity to the modern era. He is the author of The Gift of the Nile (2001), The Classics and Colonial India (2013), and Postclassicisms (2019; co-author). He is the editor of numerous books, including a recent volume on Classics and Race: A Historical Reader (2025; with Sarah Derbew and Daniel Orrells). He is also the general editor of the book series Ancients and Moderns, published by Bloomsbury.

Sep. 9 - 11, 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm ET