Laura Eastlake
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198833031
- eISBN:
- 9780191871351
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198833031.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, British and Irish History: BCE to 500CE
Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity examines Victorian receptions of ancient Rome from the French Revolution to the First World War, with a specific focus on how those receptions were deployed to ...
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Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity examines Victorian receptions of ancient Rome from the French Revolution to the First World War, with a specific focus on how those receptions were deployed to create useable models of masculinity. Romans in Victorian literature were at once pagan persecutors, pious statesmen, pleasure-seeking decadents, and heroes of empire. The Roman parallel was used to capture the martial virtue of Wellington just as it was used to condemn the deviance and degeneracy of Oscar Wilde. Using approaches from literary and cultural studies, reception studies, and gender studies, this book is the first comprehensive examination of the importance of ancient Rome for Victorian ideas about masculinity. With chapters on education, politics, empire, and late Victorian decadence, it makes sense of the manifold and often contradictory representations of Rome—as distinct from Greece—in authors like Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and others.Less
Ancient Rome and Victorian Masculinity examines Victorian receptions of ancient Rome from the French Revolution to the First World War, with a specific focus on how those receptions were deployed to create useable models of masculinity. Romans in Victorian literature were at once pagan persecutors, pious statesmen, pleasure-seeking decadents, and heroes of empire. The Roman parallel was used to capture the martial virtue of Wellington just as it was used to condemn the deviance and degeneracy of Oscar Wilde. Using approaches from literary and cultural studies, reception studies, and gender studies, this book is the first comprehensive examination of the importance of ancient Rome for Victorian ideas about masculinity. With chapters on education, politics, empire, and late Victorian decadence, it makes sense of the manifold and often contradictory representations of Rome—as distinct from Greece—in authors like Wilkie Collins, Anthony Trollope, H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, and others.
Anna Peterson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190697099
- eISBN:
- 9780190697129
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190697099.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book examines the impact that Athenian Old Comedy had on Greek writers of the Imperial era. It is generally acknowledged that Imperial-era Greeks responded to Athenian Old Comedy in one of two ...
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This book examines the impact that Athenian Old Comedy had on Greek writers of the Imperial era. It is generally acknowledged that Imperial-era Greeks responded to Athenian Old Comedy in one of two ways: either as a treasure trove of Atticisms, or as a genre defined by and repudiated for its aggressive humor. Worthy of further consideration, however, is how both approaches, and particularly the latter one that relegated Old Comedy to the fringes of the literary canon, led authors to engage with the ironic and self-reflexive humor of Aristophanes, Eupolis, and Cratinus. Authors ranging from serious moralizers (Plutarch and Aelius Aristides) to comic writers in their own right (Lucian, Alciphron), to other figures not often associated with Old Comedy (Libanius) adopted aspects of the genre to negotiate power struggles, facilitate literary and sophistic rivalries, and provide a model for autobiographical writing. To varying degrees, these writers wove recognizable features of the genre (e.g., the parabasis, its agonistic language, the stage biographies of the individual poets) into their writings. The image of Old Comedy that emerges from this time is that of a genre in transition. It was, on the one hand, with the exception of Aristophanes’s extant plays, on the verge of being almost completely lost; on the other hand, its reputation and several of its most characteristic elements were being renegotiated and reinvented.Less
This book examines the impact that Athenian Old Comedy had on Greek writers of the Imperial era. It is generally acknowledged that Imperial-era Greeks responded to Athenian Old Comedy in one of two ways: either as a treasure trove of Atticisms, or as a genre defined by and repudiated for its aggressive humor. Worthy of further consideration, however, is how both approaches, and particularly the latter one that relegated Old Comedy to the fringes of the literary canon, led authors to engage with the ironic and self-reflexive humor of Aristophanes, Eupolis, and Cratinus. Authors ranging from serious moralizers (Plutarch and Aelius Aristides) to comic writers in their own right (Lucian, Alciphron), to other figures not often associated with Old Comedy (Libanius) adopted aspects of the genre to negotiate power struggles, facilitate literary and sophistic rivalries, and provide a model for autobiographical writing. To varying degrees, these writers wove recognizable features of the genre (e.g., the parabasis, its agonistic language, the stage biographies of the individual poets) into their writings. The image of Old Comedy that emerges from this time is that of a genre in transition. It was, on the one hand, with the exception of Aristophanes’s extant plays, on the verge of being almost completely lost; on the other hand, its reputation and several of its most characteristic elements were being renegotiated and reinvented.
Dwayne A. Meisner
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190663520
- eISBN:
- 9780190663551
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190663520.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods is a literary history that attempts to reconstruct the fragments of four theogonies that were attributed to the legendary singer Orpheus: the Derveni, ...
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Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods is a literary history that attempts to reconstruct the fragments of four theogonies that were attributed to the legendary singer Orpheus: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic Theogonies. Most modern scholars have described these poems as if they were similar to Hesiod’s Theogony—lengthy chronological accounts of the births of the gods from the beginning of time to the present—but this book suggests that a better model for understanding how these poems were composed is to see each of them as an individual product of bricolage (as explained by Claude Lévi-Strauss), rather than as items in the stemma of a static manuscript tradition (as reconstructed by Martin West). The Orphic tradition was more fluid and fragmented than modern reconstructions would lead one to believe, but in these four Orphic theogonies certain features stand out, such as points of comparison with Near Eastern myths, the continuous discourse between Orphic poetry and philosophy, and speculations on the nature of the gods in ways that generated unique deities and new narratives. A study of Orphic theogonies reveals that the Orphic myths of Phanes and Zeus were no less important than the Orphic myth of Dionysus.Less
Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods is a literary history that attempts to reconstruct the fragments of four theogonies that were attributed to the legendary singer Orpheus: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic Theogonies. Most modern scholars have described these poems as if they were similar to Hesiod’s Theogony—lengthy chronological accounts of the births of the gods from the beginning of time to the present—but this book suggests that a better model for understanding how these poems were composed is to see each of them as an individual product of bricolage (as explained by Claude Lévi-Strauss), rather than as items in the stemma of a static manuscript tradition (as reconstructed by Martin West). The Orphic tradition was more fluid and fragmented than modern reconstructions would lead one to believe, but in these four Orphic theogonies certain features stand out, such as points of comparison with Near Eastern myths, the continuous discourse between Orphic poetry and philosophy, and speculations on the nature of the gods in ways that generated unique deities and new narratives. A study of Orphic theogonies reveals that the Orphic myths of Phanes and Zeus were no less important than the Orphic myth of Dionysus.
Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- February 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780198829430
- eISBN:
- 9780191867958
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198829430.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, European History: BCE to 500CE
Sappho, a towering figure in Western culture, is an exemplary case in the history of classical receptions. There are three prominent reasons for this. Firstly, Sappho is associated with some of the ...
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Sappho, a towering figure in Western culture, is an exemplary case in the history of classical receptions. There are three prominent reasons for this. Firstly, Sappho is associated with some of the earliest poetry in the classical tradition, which makes her reception history one of the longest we know of. Furthermore, Sappho’s poetry promotes ideologically challenging concepts such as female authority and homoeroticism, which have prompted very conspicuous interpretative strategies to deal with issues of gender and sexuality, revealing the values of the societies that have received her works through time. Finally, Sappho’s legacy has been very well explored from the perspective of reception studies: important investigations have been made into responses both to her as poet-figure and to her poetry from her earliest reception through to our own time. However, one of the few eras in Sappho’s longstanding reception history that has not been systematically explored before this volume is the Roman period. The omission is a paradox. Receptions of Sappho can be traced in more than eighteen Roman poets, among them many of the most central authors in the history of Latin literature. Surely, few other Greek poets can rival the impact of Sappho at Rome. This important fact calls out for a systematic approach to Sappho’s Roman reception, which is the aim of the present volume that focuses on the poetry of the central period of Roman literary history, from the time of Lucretius to that of Martial.Less
Sappho, a towering figure in Western culture, is an exemplary case in the history of classical receptions. There are three prominent reasons for this. Firstly, Sappho is associated with some of the earliest poetry in the classical tradition, which makes her reception history one of the longest we know of. Furthermore, Sappho’s poetry promotes ideologically challenging concepts such as female authority and homoeroticism, which have prompted very conspicuous interpretative strategies to deal with issues of gender and sexuality, revealing the values of the societies that have received her works through time. Finally, Sappho’s legacy has been very well explored from the perspective of reception studies: important investigations have been made into responses both to her as poet-figure and to her poetry from her earliest reception through to our own time. However, one of the few eras in Sappho’s longstanding reception history that has not been systematically explored before this volume is the Roman period. The omission is a paradox. Receptions of Sappho can be traced in more than eighteen Roman poets, among them many of the most central authors in the history of Latin literature. Surely, few other Greek poets can rival the impact of Sappho at Rome. This important fact calls out for a systematic approach to Sappho’s Roman reception, which is the aim of the present volume that focuses on the poetry of the central period of Roman literary history, from the time of Lucretius to that of Martial.
The City and the Stage
Euripides and the Gods
Literary Territories
Lykophron's Alexandra, Rome, and the Hellenistic World
New Worlds from Old Texts
Ovid's Presence in Contemporary Women's Writing
Sophocles and the Language of Tragedy
Tombs of the Ancient Poets
Wandering Poets and Other Essays on Late Greek Literature and Philosophy
