Classics

Access via Cambridge Histories Online.
vol. 1 Greek Literature
vol. 2 Latin Literature

The third edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature is the complete and authoritative reference guide to the classical world and its literary heritage. It not only presents the reader with all the essential facts about the authors, tales, and characters from ancient myth and literature, but it also places these details in the wider contexts of the history and society of the Greek and Roman worlds. With an extensive web of cross-references and a useful chronological table and location maps (all of which have been brought fully up to date), this volume traces the development of literary forms and the classical allusions which have become embedded in our Western culture.

Biographical sketches of 376 Greek and Latin authors covering the years 800 B.C. to 1000 A.D. Includes a list of works of doubtful attribution and a chronological list of authors by century.

Latin Fiction provides a chronological study of the Roman novel from the Classical period to the Middle Ages, exploring the development of the novel and the continuity of Latin culture. Essays by eminent and international contributors discuss texts including: • Petronius, Satyrica and Cena Trimalchionis• Apuleius, Metamorphose(The Golden Ass) and The Tale of Cupid and Psyche• The History of Apollonius of Tyre• The Trojan tales of Dares Phrygius and Dictys Cretensis• The Latin Alexander• Hagiographic fiction• Medieval interpretations of Cupid and Pysche, Apollonius of Tyre and the Alexander Romance.

Tracing the history of tragedy and comedy from their earliest beginnings to the present, this book offers readers an exceptional study of the development of both genres, grounded in analysis of landmark plays and their context. It argues that sacrifice is central to both genres, and demonstrates how it provides a key to understanding the grand sweep of Western drama.

A Companion to Roman Love Elegy is the first comprehensive work dedicated solely to the study of love elegy. The genre is explored through 33 original essays thatoffer new and innovative approaches to specific elegists and the discipline as a whole. Contributors represent a range of established names and younger scholars, all of whom are respected experts in their fields Contains original, never before published essays, which are both accessible to a wide audience and offer a new approach to the love elegists and their work Includes 33 essays on the Roman elegists Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, Sulpicia, and Ovid, as well as their Greek and Roman predecessors and later writers who were influenced by their work Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in Roman elegy from scholars who have used a variety of critical approaches to open up new avenues of understanding.

A Companion to Latin Literature gives an authoritative account of Latin literature from its beginnings in the third century BC through to the end of the second century AD. Covers all the major Latin works of prose and poetry, from Ennius to Augustine, including Lucretius, Cicero, Catullus, Livy, Vergil, Seneca, and Apuleius.

Until the Renaissance the centrality of Roman tragedy in Western society and culture was unchallenged. Studies on Roman Republican tragedy and on Imperial Roman tragedy by the contributors have been directing the gaze of scholarship back to Roman tragedy. This volume has two goals: first, to demonstrate that Republican tragedy had a far more central role in shaping Imperial tragedy than is currently thought, and quite possibly more important than Classical Greek tragedy. Second, the influence of other Roman literary genres on Roman tragedy is greater than has formerly been credited. Studies on von Kleist and Shelley, Eliot and Claus help reconstruct the ancient Roman stage by showing how moderns had thought to change it for contemporary aesthetics.