Approaching Classical Civilisation Literature In An Exam

Hello! This is an approach to Class. Civ. exam taking which I myself adopted whilst studying Classical Civilisation at A Level through to my university exams in Ancient History and Classical Archaeology. Past students whom I have tutored have found this quite useful so I thought I would pop it on here.

Firstly the examiners want to know that not only do you know the direct answer to the question but the context around the content in question, so let`s use the example of `Does Circe have power in the Odyssey?`. For this question you are of course expected to respond with what you know of Circe: she has the ability to turn men into animals and capture them indefinitely until Odysseus shows up and quickly dispatches of her abilities with the Moly root. At this point she is removed of her power and apparently succumbs to Odysseus` charm for a year until he decides to continue his journey.

This is all evidence that you will want to evaluate in light of the question but you should also compare Circe to other women in the Odyssey to see if they have agency, how far that agency goes and whether it follows a similar pattern to Circe, e.g. Calypso or Penelope, or Nausicaa or Helen, or whether Circe has a unique form of agency. You might then bring in some of your other knowledge of women in Bronze Age Greece (under which the Odyssey was thought to be composed) and see how Circe`s agency is supported or not by what we know of women`s agency from archaeological evidence and the Homeric tradition.

I like to make sure that my answers incorporate these three elements in turn (direct evidence, comparison-based evidence and contextual evidence) before coming to a rounded and reasoned conclusion.