This book aims to promote a simple idea: that, in the contemporary context of the study and interpretation of classical literature at universities, traditional classical scholarship and modern theoretical ideas need to work with each other in the common task of the interpretation of texts. Such dialogue and co-operation is not merely desirable; it is essential to ensure the survival and relevance of the study of classical literature in the twenty-first century. The topics selected were chosen by a panel of distinguished practitioners as traditional areas of classical literary studies where the importance of co-operation of theory and scholarship could be shown in different ways by scholars who ranged widely in their views: "literary language," "narrative," "genre," "historicism," and "reception and history of scholarship."

A comprehensive history of censorship in modern Britain For Victorian lawmakers and judges, the question of whether a book should be allowed to circulate freely depended on whether it was sold to readers whose mental and moral capacities were in doubt, by which they meant the increasingly literate and enfranchised working classes. The law stayed this way even as society evolved. In 1960, in the obscenity trial over D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover, the prosecutor asked the jury, "Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?" Christopher Hilliard traces the history of British censorship from the Victorians to Margaret Thatcher, exposing the tensions between obscenity law and a changing British society. Hilliard goes behind the scenes of major obscenity trials and uncovers the routines of everyday censorship, shedding new light on the British reception of literary modernism and popular entertainments such as the cinema and American-style pulp fiction and comic books. He reveals the thinking of lawyers and the police, authors and publishers, and politicians and ordinary citizens as they wrestled with questions of freedom and morality. He describes how supporters and opponents of censorship alike tried to remake the law as they reckoned with changes in sexuality and culture that began in the 1960s. Based on extensive archival research, this incisive and multifaceted book reveals how the issue of censorship challenged British society to confront issues ranging from mass literacy and democratization to feminism, gay rights, and multiculturalism.

"A brilliant examination of literary invention through the ages, from ancient Mesopotamia to Elena Ferrante, showing how writers created technical breakthroughs as sophisticated and significant as any in science, and in the process, engineered enhancements to the human heart and mind"--

A posthumously published collection of thirty-six essays offering Italo Calvino's invigorating and illuminating analysis of his most treasured literary classics.

Classics in the Classroom presents practical ways to use great literature to inspire imaginative writing by young people and others. The great literature discussed in this volume includes myths, epics, lyric poems, plays, stories, and novels, from ancient Sumeria, Greece, Rome, and Persia, and from Europe, Japan, Africa, and the United States. Authors presented include Homer, Sappho, Aristophanes, Ovid, Catullus, Rumi, Shakespeare, Basho, Shelley, Charlotte Bronte, Kleist, Twain, and Hesse. Also discussed are works such as The Epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible, and Beowulf. The 19 informal essays in this book offer useful ideas and approaches taken directly from the contributors' own teaching experience.

Mary Beard is one of the world's best-known classicists - a brilliant academic, with a rare gift for communicating with a wide audience both though her TV presenting and her books. In a series of sparkling essays, she explores our rich classical heritage - from Greek drama to Roman jokes, introducing some larger-than-life characters of classical history, such as Alexander the Great, Nero and Boudicca. She invites you into the places where Greeks and Romans lived and died, from the palace at Knossos to Cleopatra's Alexandria - and reveals the often hidden world of slaves. She takes a fresh look at both scholarly controversies and popular interpretations of the ancient world, from The Golden Bough to Asterix. The fruit of over thirty years in the world of classical scholarship, Confronting the Classics captures the world of antiquity and its modern significance with wit, verve and scholarly expertise.

Tony Harrison and the Classics comprises fifteen chapters examining the lasting importance of Tony Harrison's classical education, the extent of the influence of Greek and Roman texts on his subjects, themes, and styles, his contribution to knowledge and understanding of classical literature, his popularization of classical works, and his innovative treatment of classical drama in plays which have been performed globally. Harrison's work fosters debates about the role and perception of the classics and adaptations of classical literature in relation to education, 'high' and 'popular' culture, accessibility, and reception. A unifying theme of the collection is the way in which Harrison finds in classical literature fruitful matter for the articulation and dramatization of his longstanding preoccupations: language, class, access to art, and the causes and effects of war. Through his adaptations and translations, Harrison uses classical drama to stage interventions in modern politics, but neither idealizes nor romanticizes the ancient world, depicting inequality, bigotry, greed, and brutality.

Repairing the Ruins is a collection of essays about classical education.