Why study the classics? For one thing, classicists have the distinguished pedigree of being among the first humanists to see and exploit the educational possibilities of new developments in information technology. Even better, they can translate such tantalizing tattoos as quod me nutrit me destruit, a quote which most famously resides on Angelina Jolie's belly. For these and other intrepid explorers of the minds of the past, Fred Jenkins offers a newly revised and expanded annotated bibliography of book-length reference works, covering the rise and fall of the Greek and Roman civilizations from the Bronze Age through the 6th century AD. While preference has been given to English-language works, many important titles in French, German, Italian, and Spanish have also been included. There is also increased coverage of ancient philosophy, religion (including early Christianity), and art and archaeology.
A brief presentation of over 1000 literary sources relevant to the study of Greek and Latin Mythology, Magic, Philosophy, and Gnosticism. Along some of the most famous works of Cicero, Plato and Virgil, it also succinctly presents the ones of Ampelius, the Paradoxographus Florentinus and Tiberianus, among many, many others. For even more literary sources, there's now a more recent edition of this work, under the new name Sources of Myths, Legends and Classical Literature!
This new edition of Anthology of Classical Myth offers selections from key Near Eastern texts—the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, Epic of Creation (Enuma Elish), and Atrahasis; the Hittite Song of Emergence; and the flood story from the book of Genesis—thereby enabling students to explore the many similarities between ancient Greek and Mesopotamian mythology and enhancing its reputation as the best and most complete collection of its kind.
Traditional and still prevalent accounts of late antique literature draw a clear distinction between 'pagan' and 'Christian' forms of poetry: whereas Christian poetry is taken seriously in terms its contribution to culture and society at large, so-called pagan or secular poetry is largely ignored, as though it has no meaningful part to play within the late antique world. The Myth of Paganism sets out to deconstruct this view of two contrasting poetic traditions and proposes in its place a new integrated model for the understanding of late antique poetry. As the book argues, the poet of Christ and the poet of the Muses were drawn together into an active, often provocative, dialogue about the relationship between Christianity and the Classical tradition and, ultimately, about the meaning of late antiquity itself. An analysis of the poetry of Nonnus of Panopolis, author of both a 'pagan' epic about Dionysus and a Christian translation of St John's Gospel, helps to illustrate this complex dialectic between pagan and Christian voices.
William Allan's Very Short Introduction provides a concise and lively guide to the major authors, genres, and periods of classical literature. Drawing upon a wealth of material, he reveals just what makes the 'classics' such masterpieces and why they continue to influence and fascinate today.
Classical Literature: An Introduction provides an overview of the essential aspects of Greek and Latin literature. In conjunction with contextualising introductions the material is presented chronologically, by genre and where appropriate by author. The book ranges from Homer to the Roman Empire and includes a chronology of ancient literature, maps, lists of Greek and Roman authors and suggestions for further reading. The collection will be essential for students and others who want a structured and informative introduction to the literature of the classical world.
The enduring and engaging guide to educating yourself in the classical tradition. Have you lost the art of reading for pleasure? Are there books you know you should read but haven’t because they seem too daunting? In The Well-Educated Mind, Susan Wise Bauer provides a welcome and encouraging antidote to the distractions of our age, electronic and otherwise. Newly expanded and updated to include standout works from the twenty-first century as well as essential readings in science (from the earliest works of Hippocrates to the discovery of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs), The Well-Educated Mind offers brief, entertaining histories of six literary genres—fiction, autobiography, history, drama, poetry, and science—accompanied by detailed instructions on how to read each type. The annotated lists at the end of each chapter—ranging from Cervantes to Cormac McCarthy, Herodotus to Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Aristotle to Stephen Hawking—preview recommended reading and encourage readers to make vital connections between ancient traditions and contemporary writing. The Well-Educated Mind reassures those readers who worry that they read too slowly or with below-average comprehension. If you can understand a daily newspaper, there’s no reason you can’t read and enjoy Shakespeare’s sonnets or Jane Eyre. But no one should attempt to read the “Great Books” without a guide and a plan. Bauer will show you how to allocate time to reading on a regular basis; how to master difficult arguments; how to make personal and literary judgments about what you read; how to appreciate the resonant links among texts within a genre—what does Anna Karenina owe to Madame Bovary?—and also between genres. In her best-selling work on home education, The Well-Trained Mind, the author provided a road map of classical education for parents wishing to home-school their children; that book is now the premier resource for home-schoolers. In The Well-Educated Mind, Bauer takes the same elements and techniques and adapts them to the use of adult readers who want both enjoyment and self-improvement from the time they spend reading. Followed carefully, her advice will restore and expand the pleasure of the written word.
This volume provides essays that represent a range of perspectives on women, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, tracing the debates from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.
Right from the beginning, classical literature has been embroiled with questions of authenticity, fakes, frauds, and, of course, scandal. Issues of dubious authorship, and contested authority confront philologists, critics and publishers today as surely as they did in the classical era itself. The new era of postmodernism, however, encourages us to look at the work of the forger with fresh eyes, and recent scholarship reflects this in an interdisciplinary approach which goes well beyond the conventional academic endeavor to separate the authentic from the fake. Fakes and Forgers of Classical Literature comprises essays from an international cast of scholars who, in their diverse and creative approaches to questions of authenticity both old and new, radically revise the position of the forged text in the literary tradition and, in light of modern approaches of philology and literary criticism, offer exciting new strategies for understanding forgery and the play with authenticity within ancient literature itself.
