Classical Literature: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and BeyondThe writings of the Greeks and Romans form the bedrock of Western culture. Inventing the molds for histories, tragedies, and philosophies, while pioneering radical new forms of epic and poetry, the Greeks and Romans created the literary world we still inhabit today. Writing with verve and insight, distinguished classicist Richard Jenkyns explores a thousand years of classical civilization, carrying readers from the depths of the Greek dark ages through the glittering heights of Rome's empire. Jenkyns begins with Homer and the birth of epic poetry before exploring the hypnotic poetry of Pindar, Sappho, and others from the Greek dark ages. Later, in Athens's classical age, Jenkyns shows the radical nature of Sophocles's choice to portray Ajax as a psychologically wounded warrior, how Aeschylus developed tragedy, and how Herodotus, in "inventing history," brought to narrative an epic and tragic quality. We meet the strikingly modern figure of Virgil, struggling to mirror epic art in an age of empire, and experience the love poems of Catullus, who imbued verse with obsessive passion as never before. Even St. Paul and other early Christian writers are artfully grounded here in their classical literary context. A dynamic and comprehensive introduction to Greek and Roman literature, Jenkyns's Classical Literature is essential reading for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the classics -- and the extraordinary origins of Western culture. "There is scarcely anything on which he does not offer an original aperç sometimes illuminating, sometimes simply provocative, but always worth reading... Jenkyns's view of ancient literature is Olympian." -- G.W. Bowersock, The New York Review of Books |
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CLASSICAL LITERATURE: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond
User Review - KirkusA deft distillation of 1,000 years of literature. Classicist Jenkyns (Emeritus, Classical Tradition/Univ. of Oxford; God, Space, and the City in the Roman Imagination, 2014, etc.) crafts a concise and ... Read full review
Contents
Archaic Greece | |
The Rise of Tragedy and History | |
The Later Fifth Century | |
The Fourth Century | |
The Hellenistic | |
The Roman Republic | |
Other editions - View all
Classical Literature: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond Richard Jenkyns Limited preview - 2016 |
Classical Literature: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond Richard Jenkyns No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
Achilles Aeneas Aeneid Aeschylus Agamemnon ancient antiquity Argonautica Aristophanes Aristotle Athenian Athens Augustus authors battle beauty begins Bucolics Callimachus Catullus century character chorus Cicero classical literature Clytemnestra comedy dead death declares describes dialogue didactic Dido Dionysus divine drama Elegies elegists epic Epicurus epigram Euripides father feel genre Georgics gives goddess gods Greek Hector Hellenistic hero Herodotus hexameter Hippolytus historian Homer Horace Horace’s human idea Iliad Juvenal killed king language later Latin literature lines literary look lover Lucretius lyric metre modern moral mythological narrative Nature of Things Odyssey Oedipus orator Ovid passion perhaps philosophy piece Plato play poem poem’s poet poet’s poetry Priam Prometheus Propertius Roman Rome Satires Satyrica scene seems Seneca sense simile slave Socrates song Sophocles speaks speech story style surviving Tacitus tale tells theme Theocritus Thucydides tragedy Trojan Troy verse Virgil woman women words write wrote Zeus
Bibliographic information
| Title | Classical Literature: An Epic Journey from Homer to Virgil and Beyond |
| Author | Richard Jenkyns |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Basic Books, 2016 |
| ISBN | 0465097987, 9780465097982 |
| Length | 288 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Ancient / Greece History / Ancient / Rome Literary Criticism / Ancient & Classical |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |