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“Genre” has classical roots: both in the etymology of the word and in the history of genre criticism in relation to English literature, which begins with Aristotle. In a similar vein, it is almost a commonplace to state that literary genres are not given or fixed entities but subjective and unstable (as well as historically situated), and that the reception of genre by both writers and scholars feeds back into the way genre is articulated in specific literary works. This volume connects the situatedness of genre in English poetry with an emphasis on the significance of developments in classical scholarship, to address the ways in which classical scholarship and English literary criticism interact, and to explore how this interaction affects, changes, sharpens, blurs, or perhaps even obstructs views on genre in English poetry. These themes—classical scholarship, literary criticism, and genre—form a triangle of key concepts for the volume, approached in different ways and with different productive results by contributors from across the fields of reception studies, English poetry, classical scholarship, and the history of scholarship and literary criticism. Covering topics from the establishment of genre in the Middle Ages to the invention of the Elizabethan epyllion in the twentieth century, and bringing together the works of English poets from Chaucer to Tennyson to Josephine Balmer, the essays collected here argue that the reception and criticism of classical texts play a crucial part in generic formation in English poetry.

Euripides’ Bacchae is the magnum opus of the ancient world’s most popular dramatist. Yet the play is the most modern, perhaps postmodern, of ancient plays. Twentieth-century poets and playwrights often turned their hand to Bacchae, leaving the play with an especially rich and varied translation history. It has also been subjected to several fashions of criticism and interpretation over the years, all reflected in, influencing, and influenced by translation. The Gentle, Jealous God introduces the play and surveys its wider reception; examines a selection of English translations from the early 20th century to the early 21st, setting them in their social, intellectual, and cultural context; and argues, finally, that Dionysus and Bacchae remain potent cultural symbols even now. Simon Perris presents a fascinating cultural history of one of world theatre’s landmark classics. He explores the reception of the classical ideal in a violent and turmoil-ridden era. He illustrates the enduring appeal of Dionysus, Bacchae, and the classical ideal in a violent and turmoil-ridden era. And he demonstrates by example that translation matters, or should matter, to readers, writers, actors, directors, students, and scholars of ancient drama.

Why has the myth of Pygmalion and his ivory statue proved so inspirational for writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and directors and creators of films and television series? The 'authorised' version of the story appears in the epic poem of transformations, Metamorphoses, by the first-century CE Latin poet Ovid; in which the bard Orpheus narrates the legend of the sculptor king of Cyprus whose beautiful carved woman was brought to life by the goddess Venus. Focusing on screen storylines with a Pygmalion subtext, from silent cinema to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lars and the Real Girl, this book looks at why and how the made-over or manufactured woman has survived through the centuries and what we can learn about this problematic model of ‘perfection’ from the perspective of the past and the present. Given the myriad representations of Ovid's myth, can we really make a modern text a tool of interpretation for an ancient poem? This book answers with a resounding ‘yes’ and explains why it is so important to give antiquity back its future.

This volume focuses on the reception of antiquity in the performing and visual arts from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. It explores the tensions and relations of gender, sexuality, eroticism and power in reception. Such universal themes dictated plots and characters of myth and drama, but also served to portray historical figures, events and places from Classical history. Their changing reception and reinterpretation across time has created stereotypes, models of virtue or immoral conduct, that blend the original features from the ancient world with a diverse range of visual and performing arts of the modern era. The volume deconstructs these traditions and shows how arts of different periods interlink to form and transmit these images to modern audiences and viewers. Drawing on contributions from across Europe and the United States, a trademark of the book is the inclusive treatment of all the arts beyond the traditional limits of academic disciplines.

This paper presents as a case study a discussion pertaining to a peculiar approach that some US scholars have applied to texts of ancient Greek literature, as a response to a specific reality that for decades has been afflicting American society: the timeless experience of war and its aftermath. It is a type of reading and re-usage of some ancient texts that can be regarded as a case of Classical Reception, which also, and almost inevitably, involves Outreach: it in fact provides a service beyond conventional limits to reach out to particular segments of the community. The analysis will be articulated into two parts: the first one will consist of (i) a theoretical overview of the status of Classical Reception Studies with a survey of a few cases as a sample of ‘how it works’, and (ii) an introduction to the above mentioned approach to classical texts to respond to the reality of modern war, such an approach that turns Classics into an important tool of outreach and therapy. The second part (forthcoming in Acta Scientiarum v.36, n.3) will consist of a detailed discussion of the ‘case study’ in terms of reception, outreach, and therapy, with an attention to the pedagogical discourse, and with a conclusion on a personal note of the author of this paper, based on a related personal experience.

The performance of Rudens in 1884 by the Ladies’ Literary Society of Washington University allows consideration of discourses surrounding the problems of slavery and emancipation in 1884 St. Louis. Comparing Plautus’ text (and representation of Roman slavery), the English translation prepared to accompany the performance, and published reviews of the performance reveals crucial redactions and alterations. Even as reviews reveal enthusiasm for the theatrical production, judged authentic for costuming and Latin pronunciation, the changes are shown to reproduce traditional American discourses about slavery and freedom, contemporary narratives about free Blacks, and local, campus discourses about the end of Reconstruction.

The Victorian classical burlesque was a popular theatrical genre of the mid-19th century. It parodied ancient tragedies with music, melodrama, pastiche, merciless satire and gender reversal. Immensely popular in its day, the genre was also intensely metatheatrical and carries significance for reception studies, the role and perception of women in Victorian society and the culture of artistic censorship. This anthology contains the annotated text of four major classical burlesques:Antigone Travestie(1845) by Edward L. Blanchard,Medea; or, the Best of Mothers with a Brute of a Husband(1856) by Robert Brough,Alcestis; the Original Strong-Minded Woman(1850) andElectra in a New Electric Light(1859) by Francis Talfourd. The cultural and textual annotations highlight the changes made to the scripts from the manuscripts sent to the Lord Chamberlain's office and, by explaining the topical allusions and satire, elucidate elements of the burlesques' popular cultural milieu. An in-depth critical introduction discusses the historical contexts of the plays' premieres and unveils the cultural processes behind the reception of the myths and original tragedies. As the burlesques combined spectacular effects with allusions to contemporary affairs, ambivalent and provocative attitudes to women, the plays represent an essential tool for reading the social history of the era.

The story of the relationship between ancient (so-called “classical”) Greece and Rome and modern Europe is usually told as if it were a genealogy. It is common both inside and outside the academic study of the ancient world to hear this genealogy described as the “classical tradition”. This imagined connection reifies European supremacy and has the effect of naturalising an orientalist, Islamophobic, and racist world narrative that distances the “West” from the “East” on grounds of differential proximity to the classical and excludes Islam from its family tree entirely. This world narrative holds sway even in spite of studies that have attempted to expand “the classical” beyond the so-called West, such as – for instance – those that seek to unearth a connection between the literatures of ancient Greece and of the “Near East”. Such studies are particularly useful for thinking about the relationship between classicism and orientalism, because even as they point Eastwards, they do so according to a “clash of civilisations” structuring of the world that is engendered by classicism’s genealogical narrative. Rather than attempting to show how classically influenced the Islamicate really is (which has been one way of constructing anti-orientalist refutations of this “clash of civilisations” structure), this article is an experiment aimed at finding out whether understanding the Muslim ontologically, as oppositional with Eurocentrism, might in fact be able to counter classicism and work for justice.

Artefact collections are a key means for many people to interact with classical antiquity. The physicality of objects easily appeals to the imagination, evoking associations between the object and the viewer's experiences. Reception of artefacts is thus multilayered, even regarding what may seem to be very simple objects, such as ancient glass vessels uncovered and collected around the middle of the nineteenth century. Drawing on research into the Damon Collection (Canterbury Museum, New Zealand) this study explores Victorian reception of Roman glass, demonstrating the many and often complex ways in which objects of utilitarian origin in classical antiquity gained new meaning and surprising popularity among a broad public. Glass vessels were receptacles for ideas and the imagination, from adventure to questions of religion and empire. In particular, vessels identified as ‘lachrymatories’ became a very personal empathetic link to the classical past, with influence on popular imagination enduring to the present day.

'A really fun idea for a book - and full of great stuff.' Greg Jenner, Public Historian This is the perfect guide for any writer who wants to recreate the Roman world accurately in their fiction. It will aid any novelist, screenwriter, games designer or re-enactor in populating their story with authentic characters and scenes, costumes and locations. Written from a historian's perspective, this guide pulls back the curtain to show the reader what life in Ancient Rome was really like: what they wore, what they ate, and how they spent their time at work, at home, at war, and at play. Individual chapters focus on different aspects of Romans' lives, to give you specific knowledge of what they looked like and how they behaved, as well as a broad appreciation of what held their civilisation together, from religion, to the economy, to law and order. You may wish to work your way through the book from cover to cover, or focus specifically on individual chapters as you hone your creative writing skills. Covering the period between 200 BCE and 200 CE, A writer's guide to Ancient Rome surveys the vast amount of sources and scholarship on the Classical world so you don't have to! It outlines current scholarly debates and changing interpretations, suggests further reading, and recommends particular resources to mine for each topic. It gives you plenty to consider while you construct your own Roman world.