Last week's myth class perked up briefly when, in a sudden fit of inspiration (desperation?), I compared Achilles to a vampire. Prior to the poems' conclusion, he stops needing to eat and reaches almost demonic heights of rage, so I said that he was "almost an undead figure." The students seemed quite taken with this idea.
No doubt if I rewrote the poem to include some zombies and vampires (a la Jane Austen), some of them would actually read it.* Never mind that the work's humanity is supposed to be the point ...
*Emboldened by the fact that I'd already given the evals, I asked recently if anyone had actually done the reading. (This was after asking several factual questions about the text that no one would answer.) The response was, shall we say, less than heartening.
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