Classical Literature and Its Reception - by Robert DeMaria & Robert D Brown (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This anthology presents a selection of works that illustrates the traffic between British poetry and classical literature.

• Gives readers the classical background they need in order to really appreciate British poetry.
  
• Divided into two halves - the first half presenting a selection of the best British poems, and the second presenting relevant classical works in translation.
  
• Notes and introductions highlight the connections between British works and their classical forebears.

From the Back Cover

Many present-day readers of literature in English have little background knowledge of classical literature and therefore find it hard to appreciate the relationship between the two traditions. This anthology presents a selection of works from British, Irish, and Caribbean writers that illustrates the traffic between poetry in English and in Greek and Latin. It gives readers the background they need in order to really appreciate English-language poetry influenced by the classical tradition, and it provides those already familiar with classical works with reflections of Greek and Latin authors in English.

Review Quotes

"Anyone seeking a single volume reader on the connections between English and classical literature need look no further. The editors have made a varied and representative choice of texts, which will provide students with a gateway to a tradition of extraordinary richness and fascination." Charles Martindale, University of Bristol

"An unusual and imaginative anthology. This refreshingly conceived volume makes vivid to English readers an important selection of both English and classical poets, and shows the deep relationships between them in a manner that bypasses the academic perspectives of 'influence studies.'" Claude Rawson, Yale University

"No matter where the reader chances to open the Anthology, he or she will be assisted in understanding and appreciating both the modern selections in the first half of the book and their classical sources in the second."
Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"Laudable and respresentative anthology which does an effective job of showing ... how English poetry is indebted to classical models ... .New and interesting material." Notes and Queries

About the Author

Robert DeMaria, Jr. is the Henry Noble McCracken Professor of English and Chair of the Department at Vassar College. His recent publications include Samuel Johnson and the Life of Reading (1997) and British Literature 1640-1789: An Anthology (Second Edition, Blackwell Publishing, 2001).

Robert D. Brown is Professor of Classics at Vassar College on the Sarah Miles Raynor Chair. He is the author of Lucretius on Love and Sex (1987) and articles on a range of Roman authors including Lucretius, Caesar, Virgil, Horace, Livy, and Ovid.