"The study of the reception of the ancient novel and of its literary and cultural heritage is one of the most appealing issues in the story of this literary genre. In no other genre has the vitality of classical tradition manifested itself in such a lasting and versatile manner as in the novel. However, this unifying, centripetal quality also worked in an opposite direction, spreading to and contaminating future literatures. Over the centuries, from Antiquity to the present time there have been many authors who drew inspiration from the Greek and Roman novels or used them as models, from Cervantes to Shakespeare, Sydney or Racine, not to mention the profound influence these texts exercised on, for instance, sixteenth-to eighteenth-century Italian, Portuguese and Spanish literature. Volume I is divided into sections that follow a chronological order, while Volume II deals with the reception of the ancient novel in literature and art. The first volume brings together an international group of scholars whose main aim is to analyse the survival of the ancient novel in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the modern era. The contributors to the second volume have undertaken the task of discussing the survival of the ancient novel in the visual arts, in literature and in the performative arts. The papers assembled in these two volumes on reception are at the forefront of scholarship in the field and will stimulate scholarly research on the ancient novel and its influence over the centuries up to modern times, thus enriching not only Classics but also modern languages and literatures, cultural history, literary theory and comparative literature."--

"The study of the reception of the ancient novel and of its literary and cultural heritage is one of the most appealing issues in the story of this literary genre. In no other genre has the vitality of classical tradition manifested itself in such a lasting and versatile manner as in the novel. However, this unifying, centripetal quality also worked in an opposite direction, spreading to and contaminating future literatures. Over the centuries, from Antiquity to the present time there have been many authors who drew inspiration from the Greek and Roman novels or used them as models, from Cervantes to Shakespeare, Sydney or Racine, not to mention the profound influence these texts exercised on, for instance, sixteenth-to eighteenth-century Italian, Portuguese and Spanish literature. Volume I is divided into sections that follow a chronological order, while Volume II deals with the reception of the ancient novel in literature and art. The first volume brings together an international group of scholars whose main aim is to analyse the survival of the ancient novel in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, in the 17th and 18th centuries, and in the modern era. The contributors to the second volume have undertaken the task of discussing the survival of the ancient novel in the visual arts, in literature and in the performative arts. The papers assembled in these two volumes on reception are at the forefront of scholarship in the field and will stimulate scholarly research on the ancient novel and its influence over the centuries up to modern times, thus enriching not only Classics but also modern languages and literatures, cultural history, literary theory and comparative literature."--

The Fifth International Conference on the Ancient Novel, which was held in Houston, Texas, in the fall of 2015, brought together scholars and students of the ancient novel from all over the world in order to share new and significant developments about this fascinating field of study and its important place in the field of Classical Studies. The essays contained in these two volumes are clear evidence that the ancient novel has become a valuable part of the Classics canon and its scholarly attempts to understand the ancient Graeco-Roman world.

"The Melting Pot," "The Land of The Free," "The Land of Opportunity." These tropes or nicknames apparently reflect the freedom and open-armed welcome that the United States of America offers. However, the chronicles of history do not complement that image. These historical happenings have not often been brought into the focus of Modernist literary criticism, though their existence in the record is clear. This book aims to discuss these chronicles, displaying in great detail the underpinnings and subtle references of racism and xenophobia embedded so deeply in both fictional and real personas, whether they are characters, writers, legislators, or the common people. In the main chapters, literary works are dissected so as to underline the intolerance hidden behind words of righteousness and blind trust, as if such is the norm. Though history is taught, it is not so thoroughly examined. To our misfortune, we naively think that bigoted ideas are not a thing we could become afflicted with. They are antiques from the past – yet they possessed many hundreds of people and they surround us still. Since we’ve experienced very little change, it seems discipline is necessary to truly attempt to be rid of these ideas.

Inventing the Novel uses the work of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) to explore the ancient origins of the modern novel. The analysis focuses on one of the most elusive works of classical antiquity, the Satyrica, written by Nero's courtier, Petronius Arbiter (whose singular suicide, described by Tacitus, is as famous as his novel). Petronius was the most lauded ancient novelist of the twentieth century and the Satyrica served as the original model for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), as well as providing the epigraph for T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922), and the basis for Fellini Satyricon (1969). Bakhtin's work on the novel was deeply informed by his philosophical views: if, as a phenomenologist, he is a philosopher of consciousness, as a student of the novel, he is a philosopher of the history of consciousness, and it is the role of the novel in this history that held his attention. This volume seeks to lay out an argument in four parts that supports Bakhtin's sweeping assertion that the Satyrica plays an "immense" role in the history of the novel, beginning in Chapter 1 with his equally striking claim that the novel originates as a new way of representing time and proceeding to the question of polyphony in Petronius and the ancient novel.

This Handbook presents the first wide-ranging survey on biography in Antiquity from its earliest representations to Late Antiquity. It offers in-depth readings of key texts and diachronic studies, examines biographical depictions in different textual and visual media, and deals with the reception of ancient biography across multiple eras.

The volume focuses on the various representations of the Beyond in later Antiquity, a period of intense interaction and competition between various religious traditions and ideals of education. The concepts and images clustering around the Beyond form a crucial focal point for understanding the dynamics of religion and education in later Antiquity. Although Christianity gradually supersedes the pagan traditions, the literary representations of the Beyond derived from classical literature and transmitted through the texts read at school show a remarkable persistence: they influence Christian late antique writers and are still alive in medieval literature of the East and West. A specifically Christian Beyond develops only gradually, and coexists subsequently with pagan ideas, which in turn vary according to the respective literary and philosophical contexts. Thus, the various conceptualisations of the great existential unknown, serves here as a point of reference for mirroring the changes and continuities in Imperial and Late Antique religion, education, and culture, and opening up further perspectives into the Medieval world.

A Cockney Catullus traces the reception history of the Roman poet Catullus in Romantic-era Britain, identifying the influence of his poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford.

This companion addresses a topic of continuing contemporary relevance, both cultural and literary. Offers both a wide-ranging exploration of the classical novel of antiquity and a wealth of close literary analysis Brings together the most up-to-date international scholarship on the ancient novel, including fresh new academic voices Includes focused chapters on individual classical authors, such as Petronius, Xenophon and Apuleius, as well as a wide-ranging thematic analysis Addresses perplexing questions concerning authorial expression and readership of the ancient novel form Provides an accomplished introduction to a genre with a rising profile

This volume introduces ‘civic Shakespeare’ as a new and complex category entailing the dynamic relation between the individual and the community on issues of authority, liberty, and cultural production. It investigates civic Shakespeare through Romeo and Juliet as a case study for an interrogation of the limits and possibilities of theatre and the idea of the civic. The play’s focus on civil strife, political challenge, and the rise of a new conception of the individual within society makes it an ideal site to examine how early modern civic topics were received and reconfigured on stage, and how the play has triggered ever new interpretations and civic performances over time. The essays focus on the way the play reflects civic life through the dramatization of issues of crisis and reconciliation when private and public spaces are brought to conflict, but also concentrate on the way the play has subsequently entered the public space of civic life. Set within the fertile context of performance studies and inspired by philosophical and sociological approaches, this book helps clarify the role of theatre within civic space while questioning the relation between citizens as spectators and the community. The wide-ranging chapters cover problems of civil interaction and their onstage representation, dealing with urban and household spaces; the boundaries of social relations and legal, economic, political, and religious regulation; and the public dimension of memory and celebration. This volume articulates civic Romeo and Juliet from the sources of genre to contemporary multicultural performances in political contact-zones and civic ‘Shakespaces,’ exploring the Bard and this play within the context of communal practices and their relations with institutions and civic interests.