Reception in the Greco-Roman World: Literary Studies in Theory and Practice

The embrace of reception theory has been one of the hallmarks of classical studies over the last 30 years. This volume builds on the critical insights thereby gained to consider reception within Greek antiquity itself. Reception, like 'intertextuality', places the emphasis on the creative agency of the later 'receiver' rather than the unilateral influence of the 'transmitter'. It additionally shines the spotlight on transitions into new cultural contexts, on materiality, on intermediality and on the body. Essays range chronologically from the archaic to the Byzantine periods and address literature (prose and verse; Greek, Roman and Greco-Jewish), philosophy, papyri, inscriptions and dance. Whereas the conventional image of ancient Greek classicism is one of quiet reverence, this book, by contrast, demonstrates how rumbustious, heterogeneous and combative it could be.

About the Author

Marco Fantuzzi is a Professor of Greek Literature at the University of Roehampton. His most recent book is an edition of the Rhesus attributed to Euripides for Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries (2020).

Helen Morales is a Professor of Classics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her most recent book is Antigone Rising: The Subversive Power of the Ancient Myths (2020). She is co-editor of Ramus: Critical Studies in Greek and Roman Literature.

Tim Whitmarsh is the Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of over 80 articles and 9 books, including Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World (2015), and edits the Oxford Classical Dictionary. He is a Fellow of the British Academy.