The Reception of Classical Literature in Poetry in English since 1900

(This subject may not be combined with III. 3 Historiography, 4 Lyric, 7 Comedy, or 15 (b) Late Latin Hexameter Poetry. It is examined by pre-submitted essay [see Introduction to this Greek & Latin Literature section].)

This paper looks at the reception of classical literature in the English poetry of the twentieth century. Authors who are likely to feature include Hardy, Yeats, Frost, Eliot, Pound, H.D., Auden, MacNeice, Lowell, Hughes, Walcott, Carson, Harrison Longley and Heaney in English, and Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, Horace and Ovid in Classics. This paper will be examined only by an extended essay of 5000-6000 words, done in the latter part of the Hilary Term of the final year.

The English poetry of the twentieth century has had a vital and continuing engagement with classical models. In the first half of the century, this constituted reaction to and against culturally central texts such as Homer, Virgil and Greek tragedy; in the last third of the century, classical texts have been taken up again by poets who established themselves in other modes (Hughes and Heaney), as well as being a central thread in a career (Harrison, Carson), and the revival of Greek drama in major versions and of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in poetic treatments have been particular features. The reception of classical texts has also been a framework for treating the fall-out of colonialism (Walcott) or the politics of Northern Ireland (Heaney, Longley). This paper looks at this continuing and vital afterlife of classical literature in our own times.

Lorna Hardwick, Reception Studies (G&R New Surveys 33, Oxford 2003).

Teaching: University lectures and classes, and tutorials.