The Cambridge Companion To The Greek And Roman Novel

The Greek and Roman novels of Petronius, Apuleius, Longus, Heliodorus and others have been cherished for millennia, but never more so than now. The Cambridge Companion to the Greek and Roman Novel contains nineteen original essays by an international cast of experts in the field. The emphasis is upon the critical interpretation of the texts within historical settings, both in antiquity and in the later generations that have been and continue to be inspired by them. All the central issues of current scholarship are addressed: sexuality, cultural identity, class, religion, politics, narrative, style, readership and much more. Four sections cover cultural context of the novels, their contents, literary form, and their reception in classical antiquity and beyond. Each chapter includes guidance on further reading. This collection will be essential for scholars and students, as well as for others who want an up-to-date, accessible introduction into this exhilarating material.

The Greek romance was for the Roman period what epic was for the Archaic period or drama for the Classical: the central literary vehicle for articulating ideas about the relationship between self and community. This book offers a reading of the romance both as a distinctive narrative form (using a range of narrative theories) and as a paradigmatic expression of identity (social, sexual and cultural). At the same time it emphasises the elasticity of romance narrative and its ability to accommodate both conservative and transformative models of identity. This elasticity manifests itself partly in the variation in practice between different romancers, some of whom are traditionally Hellenocentric while others are more challenging. Ultimately, however, it is argued that it reflects a tension in all romance narrative, which characteristically balances centrifugal against centripetal dynamics. This book will interest classicists, historians of the novel and students of narrative theory.

An introduction to how the history of Rome was written in the ancient world, and its impact on later periods. It presents essays by an international team of scholars that aim both to orient non-specialist readers to the important concerns of the Roman historians and also to stimulate new research.

This book is a comprehensive introduction to ancient Athens, its topography, monuments, inhabitants, cultural institutions, religious rituals, and politics. Drawing from the newest scholarship on the city, this volume examines how the city was planned, how it functioned, and how it was transformed from a democratic polis into a Roman urbs.

No field of Latin literature has been more transformed over the last couple of decades than that of the Roman historians. Narratology, a new receptiveness to intertextuality, and a re-thinking of the relationship between literature and its political contexts have ensured that the works of historians such as Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus will be read as texts with the same interest and sophistication as they are used as sources. In this book, topics central to the entire tradition, such as conceptions of time, characterization, and depictions of politics and the gods, are treated synoptically, while other essays highlight the works of less familiar historians, such as Curtius Rufus and Ammianus Marcellinus. A final section focuses on the rich reception history of Roman historiography, from the ancient Greek historians of Rome to the twentieth century. An appendix offers a chronological list of the ancient historians of Rome.

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 second edition examines all aspects of Roman history, and contains a new introduction, three new chapters and updated bibliographies.

Satire as a distinct genre of writing was first developed by the Romans in the second century BCE. Regarded by them as uniquely 'their own', satire held a special place in the Roman imagination as the one genre that could address the problems of city life from the perspective of a 'real Roman'. In this Cambridge Companion an international team of scholars provides a stimulating introduction to Roman satire's core practitioners and practices, placing them within the contexts of Greco-Roman literary and political history. Besides addressing basic questions of authors, content, and form, the volume looks to the question of what satire 'does' within the world of Greco-Roman social exchanges, and goes on to treat the genre's further development, reception, and translation in Elizabethan England and beyond. Included are studies of the prosimetric, 'Menippean' satires that would become the models of Rabelais, Erasmus, More, and (narrative satire's crowning jewel) Swift.