The Classical Tradition: Art, Literature, Thought presents an authoritative, coherent, and wide-ranging guide to the afterlife of Greco-Roman antiquity in later Western cultures and a ground-breaking reinterpretation of large aspects of Western culture as a whole from a classical perspective. The authors provide an overview of developments in the English-speaking, French, German and Italian traditions, a critical review of selected examples and a concise point of reference, engaging in current theoretical debate on various fronts, from hermeneutics to gender.
Table of Contents:
List of Figures vii
List of Plates viii
Prologue ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Part I Overview 1
§ 1 The Classical Tradition and the Scope of Our Book 3
§ 2 Mapping the Field 10
§ 3 Eras 15
§ 4 Sustaining the Tradition: Classics and Education 32
§ 5 Authority and Authorities 52
§ 6 Masters of Knowledge 61
§ 7 Models of Style 69
§ 8 Beacons of Morality 79
§ 9 Love Guides 87
§ 10 Special Relationships 98
§ 11 The Visual Arts: Contexts and Connections 102
§ 12 Popular Culture and Its Problematics 119
§ 13 Languages and Language 137
§ 14 Modes of Engagement 166
§ 15 Translation 173
§ 16 Science and Sensibility 199
§ 17 Looking at the Past 224
§ 18 The Classical Tradition – and the Rest 241
Part II Archetypes 249
§ 19 Preface 251
§ 20 The Dome 253
§ 21 The Hero 263
§ 22 Word-Genres 276
Part III The Imaginary 287
§ 23 Preface 289
§ 24 Myth 292
§ 25 The City: Rome 306
§ 26 Forms of Government 322
§ 27 The Order of Things 331
Part IV Making a Difference 341
§ 28 Preface 343
§ 29 Originators 346
§ 30 Points of Departure 358
§ 31 Ideas and Action 375
Part V Contrasts and Comparisons 391
§ 32 Preface 393
§ 33 Painting 394
§ 34 Political Thought 402
§ 35 Poetry 411
Epilogue 428
Bibliography 432
Index 475
About the Author :
Michael Silk is Professor of Classical and Comparative
Literature at King?s College London and Adjunct Professor in
the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Ingo Gildenhard is a Lecturer in Classics at the
University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King's College.
Rosemary Barrow is Reader in Classical Art and Reception
at the University of Roehampton.
Review :
“It conducts, to its great benefit and ours, a properly theoretical enquiry....The book's structure and contents are highly innovative, with short, packed chapters, in the main driven by ideas not data, jointly written throughout by the three authors with their complementary expertise (so giving an intellectual consistency that a multi-authored volume necessarily lacks)... It belongs in the library of anyone who seriously cares about Western culture.” (Translation and Literature, 2015)
“The authors are able to write a most readable book that has the merit to summarize the topic of the afterlife of antiquity with a variety not common in other books on the same subject. The emphasis on architecture, and not only on visual arts, and the references to political and aesthetic thought are most welcome." (Enthymema, 28 November 2014)
