Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217182
- eISBN:
- 9780191712388
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217182.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its ...
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Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its methodological parameters the work of Gilroy and Bernal on the Black Atlantic and Black Athena, it introduces the construct of the ‘Black Aegean’ as the zone of cultural transmission among Africa, Ancient Greece, and contemporary Europe. Other issues in postcolonial studies, such as the nature of canonical counter-discourse, and the possible identity of the United States as a postcolonial society, are analysed. The chapter also enters into dialogue with recent writers on classical reception, and develops further the theory of classical reception by positing a version of reception that has learnt from deconstruction and so highlights its self-consciousness and recursivity. The final section of the chapter discusses theories of tragedy, supplementing Steiner with Soyinka.Less
Chapter One establishes the book's theoretical and methodological context by siting it within recent developments in postcolonial studies, reception studies, and theories of tragedy. Taking as its methodological parameters the work of Gilroy and Bernal on the Black Atlantic and Black Athena, it introduces the construct of the ‘Black Aegean’ as the zone of cultural transmission among Africa, Ancient Greece, and contemporary Europe. Other issues in postcolonial studies, such as the nature of canonical counter-discourse, and the possible identity of the United States as a postcolonial society, are analysed. The chapter also enters into dialogue with recent writers on classical reception, and develops further the theory of classical reception by positing a version of reception that has learnt from deconstruction and so highlights its self-consciousness and recursivity. The final section of the chapter discusses theories of tragedy, supplementing Steiner with Soyinka.
Barbara Goff and Michael Simpson
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199217182
- eISBN:
- 9780191712388
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217182.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book seeks to explain the prominence of Sophocles' Theban plays among those Greek tragedies adapted by dramatists across the African diaspora. It argues that the Theban plays reflect on three ...
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This book seeks to explain the prominence of Sophocles' Theban plays among those Greek tragedies adapted by dramatists across the African diaspora. It argues that the Theban plays reflect on three themes which have become crucial in the postcolonial context: identity, the grounding of civilization on barbarism, and transmission of culture over time and space. To adapt the Theban dramas is thus a massively theoretical as well as an audaciously practical act, because they have been installed as the script that both legislates and explains how they, and indeed all other cultural artefacts, are conveyed. African, Afro-Caribbean and African-American adaptations engage with the cultural politics of the so-called Western canon, and use their self-consciously literary status variously to assert, ironize, and challenge their own place, and the place of the Greek ‘originals’, in relation to that tradition. Beyond these oedipal reflexes, the adaptations offer alternative African models of cultural transmission. The book is informed by and contributes to postcolonial theory and theories of classical reception. In particular, it develops a new analytic concept, the ‘Black Aegean’, with which to theorize the ways in which colonialist and postcolonialist discourses have staged various encounters between ancient Greece and contemporary Africa. This construct mediates through the plays the later debates about the Black Atlantic and Black Athena.Less
This book seeks to explain the prominence of Sophocles' Theban plays among those Greek tragedies adapted by dramatists across the African diaspora. It argues that the Theban plays reflect on three themes which have become crucial in the postcolonial context: identity, the grounding of civilization on barbarism, and transmission of culture over time and space. To adapt the Theban dramas is thus a massively theoretical as well as an audaciously practical act, because they have been installed as the script that both legislates and explains how they, and indeed all other cultural artefacts, are conveyed. African, Afro-Caribbean and African-American adaptations engage with the cultural politics of the so-called Western canon, and use their self-consciously literary status variously to assert, ironize, and challenge their own place, and the place of the Greek ‘originals’, in relation to that tradition. Beyond these oedipal reflexes, the adaptations offer alternative African models of cultural transmission. The book is informed by and contributes to postcolonial theory and theories of classical reception. In particular, it develops a new analytic concept, the ‘Black Aegean’, with which to theorize the ways in which colonialist and postcolonialist discourses have staged various encounters between ancient Greece and contemporary Africa. This construct mediates through the plays the later debates about the Black Atlantic and Black Athena.
Emily Greenwood
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199595006
- eISBN:
- 9780191731464
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199595006.003.0022
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, African History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter examines the reception of Classics in the work Cahier d'un retour au pays natal by the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and compares Césaire's engagement with the cultures of Greece and ...
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This chapter examines the reception of Classics in the work Cahier d'un retour au pays natal by the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and compares Césaire's engagement with the cultures of Greece and Rome to that of the Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite. By comparing how these two Caribbean poets from different generations, the one Francophone, the other Anglophone, have used Classics in their expression of black cultural identities, the chapter reviews the concept of black classicism — the idea that there is a coherent reception of Classics in different black traditions. Rather than simply rejecting or affirming black classicism, it is argued that the idea of dislocation / dys‐location is central to Caribbean classical receptions, as authors attempt to relate the different black cultures which are present in the region.Less
This chapter examines the reception of Classics in the work Cahier d'un retour au pays natal by the Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and compares Césaire's engagement with the cultures of Greece and Rome to that of the Barbadian poet Kamau Brathwaite. By comparing how these two Caribbean poets from different generations, the one Francophone, the other Anglophone, have used Classics in their expression of black cultural identities, the chapter reviews the concept of black classicism — the idea that there is a coherent reception of Classics in different black traditions. Rather than simply rejecting or affirming black classicism, it is argued that the idea of dislocation / dys‐location is central to Caribbean classical receptions, as authors attempt to relate the different black cultures which are present in the region.
Kirsten Day
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474402460
- eISBN:
- 9781474422055
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474402460.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This prologue to Cowboy Classics overviews the growing interest in classical receptions: the study of how the classical world has been represented since antiquity, guided by the belief that these ...
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This prologue to Cowboy Classics overviews the growing interest in classical receptions: the study of how the classical world has been represented since antiquity, guided by the belief that these examinations can enhance the understanding of both the receiving society and the ancient one. After distinguishing classical receptions from the earlier classical tradition movement, which focuses on influence rather than dialogue, this chapter acknowledges objections to receptions studies from scholars both outside and within the field of classics, including the particular problem of comparing classical works with modern film – collaboratively-produced visual works often considered lowbrow compared to the elite literary texts of antiquity. Drawing on the work of filmmakers, teachers, and receptions scholars, this prologue argues for cinematic productions as legitimate visual texts of comparative value not only pedagogically, but also culturally, in that mainstream film, like classical epic, embeds its culture’s most closely held assumptions and worldviews. Finally, this prologue considers the specific problem of receptions studies like the one undertaken in this book – those with no evident direct connection to antiquity – arguing that these allow more focus on meaning rather than influence while bringing past works into present relevance rather than vice versa.Less
This prologue to Cowboy Classics overviews the growing interest in classical receptions: the study of how the classical world has been represented since antiquity, guided by the belief that these examinations can enhance the understanding of both the receiving society and the ancient one. After distinguishing classical receptions from the earlier classical tradition movement, which focuses on influence rather than dialogue, this chapter acknowledges objections to receptions studies from scholars both outside and within the field of classics, including the particular problem of comparing classical works with modern film – collaboratively-produced visual works often considered lowbrow compared to the elite literary texts of antiquity. Drawing on the work of filmmakers, teachers, and receptions scholars, this prologue argues for cinematic productions as legitimate visual texts of comparative value not only pedagogically, but also culturally, in that mainstream film, like classical epic, embeds its culture’s most closely held assumptions and worldviews. Finally, this prologue considers the specific problem of receptions studies like the one undertaken in this book – those with no evident direct connection to antiquity – arguing that these allow more focus on meaning rather than influence while bringing past works into present relevance rather than vice versa.
Antony Augoustakis and Monica Cyrino (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781474407847
- eISBN:
- 9781474430982
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474407847.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, World History: BCE to 500CE
The figure of Spartacus often serves as an icon of resistance against oppression in modern political movements, while his legend has inspired numerous receptions over the centuries in many different ...
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The figure of Spartacus often serves as an icon of resistance against oppression in modern political movements, while his legend has inspired numerous receptions over the centuries in many different popular media. This new book brings together a wide range of scholarly perspectives on the four seasons of the acclaimed and highly successful premium cable television series STARZ Spartacus (2010–13), with contributions from the fields of classics, history, gender, film and media studies, and classical reception. The book uncovers a fascinating range of topics and themes within the series such as slavery, society, politics, spectacle, material culture, sexuality, aesthetics, and fan reception.Less
The figure of Spartacus often serves as an icon of resistance against oppression in modern political movements, while his legend has inspired numerous receptions over the centuries in many different popular media. This new book brings together a wide range of scholarly perspectives on the four seasons of the acclaimed and highly successful premium cable television series STARZ Spartacus (2010–13), with contributions from the fields of classics, history, gender, film and media studies, and classical reception. The book uncovers a fascinating range of topics and themes within the series such as slavery, society, politics, spectacle, material culture, sexuality, aesthetics, and fan reception.
Jan Machielsen
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780197265802
- eISBN:
- 9780191772009
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265802.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This introductory chapter investigates the context in which Martin Delrio’s edition of Senecan tragedy, the Syntagma tragoediae latinae (1593/4), appeared. It explores the value of a classical ...
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This introductory chapter investigates the context in which Martin Delrio’s edition of Senecan tragedy, the Syntagma tragoediae latinae (1593/4), appeared. It explores the value of a classical education in late sixteenth-century Catholicism. Despite the Society’s later reputation in this field, Delrio’s Syntagma was only the second Jesuit edition of a classical text to appear in print. Traditionally depicted as a critique of Seneca, this chapter argues that Delrio’s Syntagma should instead be read as a carefully calibrated defence of an author whose moral teachings early modern Christians could not easily put to one side. The chapter also introduces the reader to Senecan tragedy and its reception in the early modern period.Less
This introductory chapter investigates the context in which Martin Delrio’s edition of Senecan tragedy, the Syntagma tragoediae latinae (1593/4), appeared. It explores the value of a classical education in late sixteenth-century Catholicism. Despite the Society’s later reputation in this field, Delrio’s Syntagma was only the second Jesuit edition of a classical text to appear in print. Traditionally depicted as a critique of Seneca, this chapter argues that Delrio’s Syntagma should instead be read as a carefully calibrated defence of an author whose moral teachings early modern Christians could not easily put to one side. The chapter also introduces the reader to Senecan tragedy and its reception in the early modern period.
Jennifer Ingleheart
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198819677
- eISBN:
- 9780191859991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198819677.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The little-known figure of Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge is introduced to the reader, and his clandestine writings and importance for the history of sexuality and Classical Reception are outlined. A ...
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The little-known figure of Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge is introduced to the reader, and his clandestine writings and importance for the history of sexuality and Classical Reception are outlined. A brief biography sketches Bainbrigge’s education at Eton and Cambridge, his many homosexual friends, and his career as a schoolmaster at Shrewsbury. The Introduction examines his participation in a secretive culture in which men shared private homoerotic writings with each other. It examines Bainbrigge’s wartime friendship with Wilfred Owen, and his own war poetry, in the context of scholarship on homoeroticism and First World War poetry. It lays out the way in which classical education and the history of sexuality are intimately linked, exploring the institutionalization of the Classics in public schools, attempts to censor ancient sexuality, and sex education.Less
The little-known figure of Philip Gillespie Bainbrigge is introduced to the reader, and his clandestine writings and importance for the history of sexuality and Classical Reception are outlined. A brief biography sketches Bainbrigge’s education at Eton and Cambridge, his many homosexual friends, and his career as a schoolmaster at Shrewsbury. The Introduction examines his participation in a secretive culture in which men shared private homoerotic writings with each other. It examines Bainbrigge’s wartime friendship with Wilfred Owen, and his own war poetry, in the context of scholarship on homoeroticism and First World War poetry. It lays out the way in which classical education and the history of sexuality are intimately linked, exploring the institutionalization of the Classics in public schools, attempts to censor ancient sexuality, and sex education.
Basil Dufallo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198803034
- eISBN:
- 9780191841774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198803034.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine
In the introduction Dufallo lays out the volume’s main arguments, briefly summarizes its contents, explains its relation to recent work in classical reception studies, and advances its theoretical ...
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In the introduction Dufallo lays out the volume’s main arguments, briefly summarizes its contents, explains its relation to recent work in classical reception studies, and advances its theoretical claim in response to the poststructuralist view of classical reception advanced especially by Charles Martindale. All reception could be considered “error” insofar as it involves “misreading” in the sense elaborated by Harold Bloom. But the essays in this volume reveal specific ways in which reception’s transgressive content may relate to its transgressive form or style because of the investments of receivers in a future that will view that content differently: the particular social, cultural, or political projects in which authors, artists, etc. participate as they set in motion the infinite malleability of signs. This foregrounds a pair of issues that have figured centrally in recent debates over classical reception: its relation to collective, as opposed to individual, receivers and to the future.Less
In the introduction Dufallo lays out the volume’s main arguments, briefly summarizes its contents, explains its relation to recent work in classical reception studies, and advances its theoretical claim in response to the poststructuralist view of classical reception advanced especially by Charles Martindale. All reception could be considered “error” insofar as it involves “misreading” in the sense elaborated by Harold Bloom. But the essays in this volume reveal specific ways in which reception’s transgressive content may relate to its transgressive form or style because of the investments of receivers in a future that will view that content differently: the particular social, cultural, or political projects in which authors, artists, etc. participate as they set in motion the infinite malleability of signs. This foregrounds a pair of issues that have figured centrally in recent debates over classical reception: its relation to collective, as opposed to individual, receivers and to the future.
Jennifer Ingleheart
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199689729
- eISBN:
- 9780191814044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199689729.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The Introduction discusses the way in which responses to Roman homosexuality have been overlooked by scholars interested in the formation of modern homosexual identities and proposes that the neglect ...
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The Introduction discusses the way in which responses to Roman homosexuality have been overlooked by scholars interested in the formation of modern homosexual identities and proposes that the neglect of Rome in classical reception and the history of sexuality is largely a consequence of the idealization of Greek homosexuality as spiritual and desexualized by early homosexual activists. It analyses the history of the reception of Greek ‘virtue’ and Roman ‘vice’ from Edward Gibbon, Jeremy Bentham, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, to George Cecil Ives and Edward Carpenter. The Introduction suggests that Rome has provided an alternative and more flexible model than Greece for those seeking an ancestor for their desires and identities and interrogates cultural connections between modern homosexual identities and Roman sexual mores. It argues that Rome provides fertile ground for those with a queer historical impulse.Less
The Introduction discusses the way in which responses to Roman homosexuality have been overlooked by scholars interested in the formation of modern homosexual identities and proposes that the neglect of Rome in classical reception and the history of sexuality is largely a consequence of the idealization of Greek homosexuality as spiritual and desexualized by early homosexual activists. It analyses the history of the reception of Greek ‘virtue’ and Roman ‘vice’ from Edward Gibbon, Jeremy Bentham, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, to George Cecil Ives and Edward Carpenter. The Introduction suggests that Rome has provided an alternative and more flexible model than Greece for those seeking an ancestor for their desires and identities and interrogates cultural connections between modern homosexual identities and Roman sexual mores. It argues that Rome provides fertile ground for those with a queer historical impulse.
Avi Lifschitz and Michael Squire
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198802228
- eISBN:
- 9780191840562
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198802228.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine, Prose and Writers: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The volume’s introduction sketches the scope of Lessing’s Laocoon and reassess its legacy on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. It outlines Lessing’s arguments about the ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of ...
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The volume’s introduction sketches the scope of Lessing’s Laocoon and reassess its legacy on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. It outlines Lessing’s arguments about the ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of poetry and painting, while situating Lessing’s project within Enlightenment ideas about the classical past and contemporary aesthetic criticism. The editors also lay out the overall purpose of the volume and introduce each of the chapters that follow, explaining the need for a cross-disciplinary approach.Less
The volume’s introduction sketches the scope of Lessing’s Laocoon and reassess its legacy on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. It outlines Lessing’s arguments about the ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of poetry and painting, while situating Lessing’s project within Enlightenment ideas about the classical past and contemporary aesthetic criticism. The editors also lay out the overall purpose of the volume and introduce each of the chapters that follow, explaining the need for a cross-disciplinary approach.
Joshua Billings, Felix Budelmann, and Fiona Macintosh (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199670574
- eISBN:
- 9780191759086
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199670574.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Choruses, Ancient and Modern examines the ancient Greek chorus and its afterlives in western culture. Choruses, though absolutely central to the social, political, and religious life of ...
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Choruses, Ancient and Modern examines the ancient Greek chorus and its afterlives in western culture. Choruses, though absolutely central to the social, political, and religious life of classical Greece, no longer hold the same broad importance in modernity, yet the attraction of the Greek chorus has proved a strong impetus to reimagining. Artists and thinkers have continually appropriated Greek choruses to their own ends, and the body of these engagements constitutes a rich and hitherto-unexplored area of the reception of classical antiquity. Exploring the choral tradition from archaic Greece to the present across a variety of different media, the volume thematically juxtaposes perspectives on choruses to create a dialogue between ancient and modern contexts. Following a substantial introduction, the four sections of the book discuss the place of the chorus within scholarship, aesthetic and philosophical perspectives on the chorus, reflections on absences of the chorus, and the social and communal potential of the chorus. Each section considers antiquity and modernity in counterpoint, at once defamiliarising ancient contexts of the chorus and defining crucial moments in modern choral traditions. The contributors offer perspectives drawn from classics and classical-reception studies, modern languages, theatre studies, musicology, and intellectual history.Less
Choruses, Ancient and Modern examines the ancient Greek chorus and its afterlives in western culture. Choruses, though absolutely central to the social, political, and religious life of classical Greece, no longer hold the same broad importance in modernity, yet the attraction of the Greek chorus has proved a strong impetus to reimagining. Artists and thinkers have continually appropriated Greek choruses to their own ends, and the body of these engagements constitutes a rich and hitherto-unexplored area of the reception of classical antiquity. Exploring the choral tradition from archaic Greece to the present across a variety of different media, the volume thematically juxtaposes perspectives on choruses to create a dialogue between ancient and modern contexts. Following a substantial introduction, the four sections of the book discuss the place of the chorus within scholarship, aesthetic and philosophical perspectives on the chorus, reflections on absences of the chorus, and the social and communal potential of the chorus. Each section considers antiquity and modernity in counterpoint, at once defamiliarising ancient contexts of the chorus and defining crucial moments in modern choral traditions. The contributors offer perspectives drawn from classics and classical-reception studies, modern languages, theatre studies, musicology, and intellectual history.
Monica Cyrino (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781474400275
- eISBN:
- 9781474412148
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474400275.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
Rome Season Two: Trial and Triumph is a collection of seventeen original research essays that responds to the critical and commercial success of the second season of the HBO television series, Rome ...
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Rome Season Two: Trial and Triumph is a collection of seventeen original research essays that responds to the critical and commercial success of the second season of the HBO television series, Rome (2005-07). While Rome gained immediate notoriety for its heady mix of exceptionally high production values with gripping performances and plot lines, the series also offers a new visual, narrative, and thematic aesthetic for the depiction of the tumultuous period after Caesar’s assassination, and in particular, the struggle between Octavian and Antony, the role of Cleopatra, and the story’s many received meanings. The essays in this volume explore the ways in which Rome nods to earlier receptions of ancient Rome as well as to more recent popular onscreen recreations of antiquity, while at the same time the series applies new techniques of interrogation to current social issues and concerns. The contributors to this volume are all authorities in their various sub-fields of ancient history and literature, whose academic work also engages expertly with popular culture and modern media appropriations and adaptations of the ancient world. Individual chapters address questions of politics, war, and history, while examining the representation of gender and sexuality, race and class, spectacle and violence, all in the setting of late Republican Rome. This volume considers the second season of Rome as a provocative contribution to the understanding of how specific threads of classical reception are constantly being reinvented to suit contemporary tastes, aspirations, and anxieties.Less
Rome Season Two: Trial and Triumph is a collection of seventeen original research essays that responds to the critical and commercial success of the second season of the HBO television series, Rome (2005-07). While Rome gained immediate notoriety for its heady mix of exceptionally high production values with gripping performances and plot lines, the series also offers a new visual, narrative, and thematic aesthetic for the depiction of the tumultuous period after Caesar’s assassination, and in particular, the struggle between Octavian and Antony, the role of Cleopatra, and the story’s many received meanings. The essays in this volume explore the ways in which Rome nods to earlier receptions of ancient Rome as well as to more recent popular onscreen recreations of antiquity, while at the same time the series applies new techniques of interrogation to current social issues and concerns. The contributors to this volume are all authorities in their various sub-fields of ancient history and literature, whose academic work also engages expertly with popular culture and modern media appropriations and adaptations of the ancient world. Individual chapters address questions of politics, war, and history, while examining the representation of gender and sexuality, race and class, spectacle and violence, all in the setting of late Republican Rome. This volume considers the second season of Rome as a provocative contribution to the understanding of how specific threads of classical reception are constantly being reinvented to suit contemporary tastes, aspirations, and anxieties.
Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199678921
- eISBN:
- 9780191760259
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199678921.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This introductory chapter first presents the theoretical and methodological approaches used in the book as a whole and then provides an overview of the chapters in order to illustrate the ...
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This introductory chapter first presents the theoretical and methodological approaches used in the book as a whole and then provides an overview of the chapters in order to illustrate the contributions of the collection — the first few that are entirely devoted to the study of ancient Greek women on screen — to two major interdisciplinary areas: classical reception studies and gender studies. It then argues that an exploration of the diverse ways in which the women of Greek myth and history have been resurrected, used, and abused on film leads to conclusions important for classicists and cultural historians alike. Filmic recreations of classical antiquity are not neutral. They are deeply implicated in contemporary aesthetic, socio-moral, and political discourses, and employ the past as a vehicle whereby to touch upon prevailing ideas about sexuality, the position of women in modern societies, family, social structures, ethnicity, war, religion, and the cinema itself.Less
This introductory chapter first presents the theoretical and methodological approaches used in the book as a whole and then provides an overview of the chapters in order to illustrate the contributions of the collection — the first few that are entirely devoted to the study of ancient Greek women on screen — to two major interdisciplinary areas: classical reception studies and gender studies. It then argues that an exploration of the diverse ways in which the women of Greek myth and history have been resurrected, used, and abused on film leads to conclusions important for classicists and cultural historians alike. Filmic recreations of classical antiquity are not neutral. They are deeply implicated in contemporary aesthetic, socio-moral, and political discourses, and employ the past as a vehicle whereby to touch upon prevailing ideas about sexuality, the position of women in modern societies, family, social structures, ethnicity, war, religion, and the cinema itself.
Basil Dufallo (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198803034
- eISBN:
- 9780191841774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198803034.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, History of Art: pre-history, BCE to 500CE, ancient and classical, Byzantine
In the eyes of posterity, ancient Rome is deeply flawed, whether because of political corruption or imperial domination, the practice of slavery or religious intolerance, sexual immorality or other ...
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In the eyes of posterity, ancient Rome is deeply flawed, whether because of political corruption or imperial domination, the practice of slavery or religious intolerance, sexual immorality or other “decadence”—the list could extend considerably. Without denying the good reasons why certain aspects of Roman behavior are unacceptable within our present worldview, this volume reveals how, for centuries, the Romans’ “errors” have not only provoked opprobrium but also inspired wayward, novel, errant forms of thought and representation, for whose historical importance and continued relevance the contributors argue. Treating examples from history, philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis, and art history, extending chronologically from antiquity to the present, Roman Error examines ways in which the Romans’ faults have become the basis for creative experimentation, rejections of prevailing ideology, revolutionary departures from received opinion, even comedy and delight. Thus “Roman error,” as used here, comes to signify both something that the Romans did and something that their heirs (including ourselves) do, when receptions of Rome attract charges of “error” or at least make us especially aware of reception as “error” of a kind. The reception of Rome’s missteps and mistakes has been far more complex than simply denouncing or condemning them, simply labeling them as an exemplum malum to be shunned and avoided. This volume, its play on words joining the moral, cognitive, and physical senses of the Latin verb errare (“to stray from the path of virtue,” “to be mistaken,” “to wander about,” etc.), examines a particular, recurring manner in which this is so.Less
In the eyes of posterity, ancient Rome is deeply flawed, whether because of political corruption or imperial domination, the practice of slavery or religious intolerance, sexual immorality or other “decadence”—the list could extend considerably. Without denying the good reasons why certain aspects of Roman behavior are unacceptable within our present worldview, this volume reveals how, for centuries, the Romans’ “errors” have not only provoked opprobrium but also inspired wayward, novel, errant forms of thought and representation, for whose historical importance and continued relevance the contributors argue. Treating examples from history, philosophy, literature, psychoanalysis, and art history, extending chronologically from antiquity to the present, Roman Error examines ways in which the Romans’ faults have become the basis for creative experimentation, rejections of prevailing ideology, revolutionary departures from received opinion, even comedy and delight. Thus “Roman error,” as used here, comes to signify both something that the Romans did and something that their heirs (including ourselves) do, when receptions of Rome attract charges of “error” or at least make us especially aware of reception as “error” of a kind. The reception of Rome’s missteps and mistakes has been far more complex than simply denouncing or condemning them, simply labeling them as an exemplum malum to be shunned and avoided. This volume, its play on words joining the moral, cognitive, and physical senses of the Latin verb errare (“to stray from the path of virtue,” “to be mistaken,” “to wander about,” etc.), examines a particular, recurring manner in which this is so.
Dimitris Tziovas (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199672752
- eISBN:
- 9780191774324
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672752.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
Antiquity has often been perceived as the source of Greece’s modern achievements, as well as its frustrations, with the continuity between ancient and modern Greek culture and the legacy of classical ...
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Antiquity has often been perceived as the source of Greece’s modern achievements, as well as its frustrations, with the continuity between ancient and modern Greek culture and the legacy of classical Greece to Europe dominating and shaping current perceptions of the classical past. This book aspires to offer new insights into the modern Greek reception of antiquity and includes a number of chapters with a comparative perspective. It also aims to move beyond the dominant perspectives on the Greek past by shifting attention to the ways this past has been constructed, performed, (ab)used, Hellenized, canonized, and ultimately decolonized and re-imagined. For the contributors to this volume, re-imagining the past is an opportunity to critically examine and engage imaginatively with various approaches to the ancient past that can be traced as far back as the twelfth century. Starting from the premise that the Greeks have customarily been seen as being trapped in and by their past, re-imagining that past could be seen as an act of liberation and an invitation to look at different uses and articulations of the past both in and outside Greece, ranging from literature to education and from politics to photography. This book explores both the role of antiquity in texts and established cultural practices and its popular, material, and everyday uses by charting the transition in the study of the reception of antiquity in modern Greek culture from an emphasis on the continuity of the past to the recognition of its diversity.Less
Antiquity has often been perceived as the source of Greece’s modern achievements, as well as its frustrations, with the continuity between ancient and modern Greek culture and the legacy of classical Greece to Europe dominating and shaping current perceptions of the classical past. This book aspires to offer new insights into the modern Greek reception of antiquity and includes a number of chapters with a comparative perspective. It also aims to move beyond the dominant perspectives on the Greek past by shifting attention to the ways this past has been constructed, performed, (ab)used, Hellenized, canonized, and ultimately decolonized and re-imagined. For the contributors to this volume, re-imagining the past is an opportunity to critically examine and engage imaginatively with various approaches to the ancient past that can be traced as far back as the twelfth century. Starting from the premise that the Greeks have customarily been seen as being trapped in and by their past, re-imagining that past could be seen as an act of liberation and an invitation to look at different uses and articulations of the past both in and outside Greece, ranging from literature to education and from politics to photography. This book explores both the role of antiquity in texts and established cultural practices and its popular, material, and everyday uses by charting the transition in the study of the reception of antiquity in modern Greek culture from an emphasis on the continuity of the past to the recognition of its diversity.
S. Sara Monoson
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199673926
- eISBN:
- 9780191760570
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673926.003.0029
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Afterword reviews the theoretical and archive-building contributions of this collection as a whole and argues that we can find a visual allegory of the intellectual processes of reception that is ...
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The Afterword reviews the theoretical and archive-building contributions of this collection as a whole and argues that we can find a visual allegory of the intellectual processes of reception that is emblematic of this volume’s conversations about the current trends and aspirations of classical reception studies in a sculptural group entitled ‘Transmission’ by the American artist Leo Friedlander. This 1934 pair of reliefs—‘Radio’ and ‘Television’— sit high above the pylons flanking the 50th and 51st Street entrances to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City as a clear visual allegory. This Afterword shows that the dynamic engagement of the various figures in this composition with invisible electronic forces, their architectural setting, and each other highlights the two-way, active nature of all reception study, its real demands on the reader or viewer, and its potential impact in the public arena.Less
The Afterword reviews the theoretical and archive-building contributions of this collection as a whole and argues that we can find a visual allegory of the intellectual processes of reception that is emblematic of this volume’s conversations about the current trends and aspirations of classical reception studies in a sculptural group entitled ‘Transmission’ by the American artist Leo Friedlander. This 1934 pair of reliefs—‘Radio’ and ‘Television’— sit high above the pylons flanking the 50th and 51st Street entrances to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City as a clear visual allegory. This Afterword shows that the dynamic engagement of the various figures in this composition with invisible electronic forces, their architectural setting, and each other highlights the two-way, active nature of all reception study, its real demands on the reader or viewer, and its potential impact in the public arena.
Kate Nichols
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199596461
- eISBN:
- 9780191795770
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199596461.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It ...
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This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It uncovers the social, political, and aesthetic role of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in Victorian and Edwardian culture, assessing how classical art and architecture figured in debates over design reform, taste, beauty and morality, race and imperialism. A study in classical reception, it draws on diaries, autobiographies, scrapbooks, and pamphlets to analyse audience responses to classical sculpture, and to suggest how these responses figured in contemporary popular and scholarly understandings of the Greek and Roman past. It demonstrates the vital life of classical sculpture for audiences beyond the Royal Academy, high art criticism, the Country House, and the University, and suggests that other less ‘academic’ locations ought to be taken seriously as chapters in the history of archaeology. Focusing on the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, it provides the first in-depth analysis of this popular entertainment venue in South London. This ephemeral, now vanished edifice offers an alternative history of museums to the received vision of order, chronology, and permanence typified by the British Museum. Foregrounding the close connection between entertainment and education at the Palace demonstrates a much longer history of the commercial ‘heritage industry’ usually associated with the 1980s.Less
This book examines the debates that arose around the presentation of classical plaster casts to a mass audience at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain. It uncovers the social, political, and aesthetic role of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture in Victorian and Edwardian culture, assessing how classical art and architecture figured in debates over design reform, taste, beauty and morality, race and imperialism. A study in classical reception, it draws on diaries, autobiographies, scrapbooks, and pamphlets to analyse audience responses to classical sculpture, and to suggest how these responses figured in contemporary popular and scholarly understandings of the Greek and Roman past. It demonstrates the vital life of classical sculpture for audiences beyond the Royal Academy, high art criticism, the Country House, and the University, and suggests that other less ‘academic’ locations ought to be taken seriously as chapters in the history of archaeology. Focusing on the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, it provides the first in-depth analysis of this popular entertainment venue in South London. This ephemeral, now vanished edifice offers an alternative history of museums to the received vision of order, chronology, and permanence typified by the British Museum. Foregrounding the close connection between entertainment and education at the Palace demonstrates a much longer history of the commercial ‘heritage industry’ usually associated with the 1980s.
Jennifer Ingleheart
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198819677
- eISBN:
- 9780191859991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198819677.003.0007
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The conclusion explores the wider implications of the argument of this book, and of the study of Bainbriggean classicism, or Queer Classics. The most queer Classical Receptions look to Rome for a ...
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The conclusion explores the wider implications of the argument of this book, and of the study of Bainbriggean classicism, or Queer Classics. The most queer Classical Receptions look to Rome for a range of transgressive models of sexual desire and pleasure, rather than turning to Greece to apologize for same-sex love. In private writings, Bainbrigge and others are free to focus on sex and its role in the ancient and modern worlds. Queer classicists are fascinated by the body—the ancient body and the pleasures it experienced, as well as the modern embodiment of classical education. Queer classicists remind us that the body and sexuality cannot be separated from the study of Classics—an important insight for a discipline in which expurgation of (homo)sexual material in classical texts at school is still all too common.Less
The conclusion explores the wider implications of the argument of this book, and of the study of Bainbriggean classicism, or Queer Classics. The most queer Classical Receptions look to Rome for a range of transgressive models of sexual desire and pleasure, rather than turning to Greece to apologize for same-sex love. In private writings, Bainbrigge and others are free to focus on sex and its role in the ancient and modern worlds. Queer classicists are fascinated by the body—the ancient body and the pleasures it experienced, as well as the modern embodiment of classical education. Queer classicists remind us that the body and sexuality cannot be separated from the study of Classics—an important insight for a discipline in which expurgation of (homo)sexual material in classical texts at school is still all too common.
Lorna Hardwick and Stephen Harrison (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199673926
- eISBN:
- 9780191760570
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199673926.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This book investigates the notion of a ‘democratic turn’, a perspective applied to the ways in which Greek and Roman ideas, texts, and images have been absorbed, reworked, and communicated in the ...
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This book investigates the notion of a ‘democratic turn’, a perspective applied to the ways in which Greek and Roman ideas, texts, and images have been absorbed, reworked, and communicated in the wider world in the modern period and have attracted the interest of recent research. The questions raised by the concept are historical and philosophical as well as artistic and political and they have been intensified (but not invented) by current scholarship on classical receptions. Research has tracked ways in which both ancient and newer works have become better known among less privileged groups, with the modern receptions sometimes acting as an introduction to the ancient. The range of media that use classical material has been extended (e.g. to visual arts as well as literature), often enabling mass consumption, and the independent status and value of new works has been increasingly accepted as providing a commentary on the ancient. Theoretical perspectives on reader and spectator response have widened the constituencies that are perceived to be involved in various phases of the construction of meanings and there have been extensive studies of the use of ancient material as a basis for counter-discourse or resistance in situations of political and cultural oppression (e.g. in the matter of gender). All these phenomena raise questions about the relationship between critical approaches in scholarship and cultural and political practices outside academia.Less
This book investigates the notion of a ‘democratic turn’, a perspective applied to the ways in which Greek and Roman ideas, texts, and images have been absorbed, reworked, and communicated in the wider world in the modern period and have attracted the interest of recent research. The questions raised by the concept are historical and philosophical as well as artistic and political and they have been intensified (but not invented) by current scholarship on classical receptions. Research has tracked ways in which both ancient and newer works have become better known among less privileged groups, with the modern receptions sometimes acting as an introduction to the ancient. The range of media that use classical material has been extended (e.g. to visual arts as well as literature), often enabling mass consumption, and the independent status and value of new works has been increasingly accepted as providing a commentary on the ancient. Theoretical perspectives on reader and spectator response have widened the constituencies that are perceived to be involved in various phases of the construction of meanings and there have been extensive studies of the use of ancient material as a basis for counter-discourse or resistance in situations of political and cultural oppression (e.g. in the matter of gender). All these phenomena raise questions about the relationship between critical approaches in scholarship and cultural and political practices outside academia.
Edward Paleit
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199602988
- eISBN:
- 9780191744761
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602988.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, British and Irish History: BCE to 500CE
Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s ...
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Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s sharp rise in popularity during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the equally pronounced revival of interest in the Bellum Ciuile amongst classics and English scholars over the last thirty years, makes a study of Lucan’s Renaissance reception timely and topical. Drawing on the ‘sociology of reading practices’ outlined by Renaissance scholars such as Anthony Grafton, Lisa Jardine, William Sherman and others, it argues that firstly responses to Lucan must be situated in relation to the reading habits and assumptions of their time, rather than read through modern accounts of his text (especially those structured teleologically around ideas like the epic tradition); but that it is also necessary to recognize the specific dynamics of individual engagements within a narrative of historical conflict and change. It stresses the importance of political experience and structures of feeling alongside political ideology for understanding Lucan’s reception.Less
Starting with an examination of two readings of Lucan in the hitherto little-known play Cinthias Revenge (1613), by the English lawyer and satirist John Stephens, the introduction argues that Lucan’s sharp rise in popularity during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, and the equally pronounced revival of interest in the Bellum Ciuile amongst classics and English scholars over the last thirty years, makes a study of Lucan’s Renaissance reception timely and topical. Drawing on the ‘sociology of reading practices’ outlined by Renaissance scholars such as Anthony Grafton, Lisa Jardine, William Sherman and others, it argues that firstly responses to Lucan must be situated in relation to the reading habits and assumptions of their time, rather than read through modern accounts of his text (especially those structured teleologically around ideas like the epic tradition); but that it is also necessary to recognize the specific dynamics of individual engagements within a narrative of historical conflict and change. It stresses the importance of political experience and structures of feeling alongside political ideology for understanding Lucan’s reception.
