Conversing with Antiquity: English Poets and the Classics, from Shakespeare to Pope (Classical Presences) - Softcover

Hopkins, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198706960 ISBN 13: 9780198706960

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

Conversing with Antiquity collects, in a substantially revised and updated form, studies of the reception of the classics by English poets of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by one of the leading scholars in the field. A new Introduction locates the book's investigations within the context of current debates between aestheticians and cultural historians about the reception of classical culture. Where some recent studies have regarded English poets' dealings with the classics as acts of 'appropriation', or even 'colonialization', David Hopkins emphasizes the element of dialogic give-and-take in the relationship between these poets and their classical peers. He argues that, rather than simply 'updating' or 'assimilating' the classics to their own cultural norms, poets such as Abraham Cowley, Lucy Hutchinson, Thomas Creech, John Milton, John Dryden, and Alexander Pope engaged in trans-historical conversation with Greek and Roman poets, in which self-discovery and self-transcendence were as important as any simple 'accommodation' of ancient texts to modern tastes.

About this title

About the Author

David Hopkins, Emeritus Professor of English Literature, University of Bristol

David Hopkins is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Bristol.

Review

"This is very interesting, and perhaps it must be even more interesting to those of us who feel that "a casual perusal of the Latin" is beyond us. The gloss that Hopkins offers is more than welcome to anyone who is interested in studying these poems." --George E. Haggerty, SEL Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"This is a welcome and in fact valuable publication that will be widely appreciated by those interested in classical reception in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."--Dan Hooley, University of Missouri

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0198706960
• ISBN 13: 9780198706960
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 352