The View from the Island: The Reception of Classical Antiquity

Tuesdays and Thursdays 10am–12.15pm

This course offers, through case studies, a stratigraphic overview of the reception of Greco-Roman literature and culture in the British Isles. It is not intended as a history or material culture course; rather, as a study in classical reception: that is, how Greek and Roman material has been transmitted, translated, excerpted, interpreted, rewritten, re-imaged and represented in Britain from the Roman conquest through to the present. After a week’s introduction to the British Isles from the point of view of antiquity, we will concentrate on material from the eighteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Each class will ask students both to see antiquity through the eyes of the work/authors/artists assigned, and to critique that gaze from their own, contemporary perspective.