Classics Subject Guide: Find Books

One of the glories of the Greco-Roman classics is the opportunity that they give us to consider a great culture in its entirety; but our ability to do that depends on our ability to work comfortably with very varied fields of scholarship. The Handbook for Classical Research offers guidance to students needing to learn more about the different fields and subfields of classical research, and its methods and resources. The book is divided into 7 parts: The Basics, Language, The Traditional Fields, The Physical Remains, The Written Word, The Classics and Related Disciplines, The Classics since Antiquity. Topics covered range from history and literature, lexicography and linguistics, epigraphy and palaeography, to archaeology and numismatics, and the study and reception of the classics. Guidance is given not only to read, for example, an archaeological or papyrological report, but also on how to find such sources when they are relevant to research. Concentrating on "how-to" topics, the Handbook for Classical Research is a much needed resource for both teachers and students.

In this much-anticipated new study, Robert Fowler asks in what ways the concept of the sublime can still guide a reading of the greatest of the Greek lyric poets. Working with ancient and modern treatments of the topic, especially the poetry and writings of Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), arguably Pindar's greatest modern reader, he develops the case for an aesthetic appreciation of Pindar's odes as literature.

Recent research has established the continued importance of engagement with the classical tradition to the formation of scholarly, philosophical, theological, and scientific knowledge well into the eighteenth century. The Worlds of Knowledge and the Classical Tradition in the Early Modern Age is the first attempt to adopt a comparative approach to this phenomenon. An international team of scholars explores the differences and similarities - across time and place - in how the study and use of ancient texts and ideas shaped a wide range of fields: nascent classics, sexuality, chronology, metrology, the study of the soul, medicine, the history of Judaeo-Christian interaction, and biblical criticism.

This book demonstrates the rich and varied ways in which heavy metal music draws on the ancient Greek and Roman world. Contributors examine bands from across the globe, including: Blind Guardian (Germany), Therion (Sweden), Celtic Frost, Eluveitie (Switzerland), Ex Deo (Canada/Italy), Heimdall, Stormlord, Ade (Italy), Kawir (Greece), Theatre of Tragedy (Norway), Iron Maiden, Bal-Sagoth (UK), and Nile (US). These and other bands are shown to draw inspiration from Classical literature and mythology such as the Homeric Hymns, Vergil's Aeneid, and Caesar's Gallic Wars, historical figures from Rome and ancient Egypt, and even pagan and occult aspects of antiquity.

Roman comedy evolved early in the war-torn 200s BCE. Troupes of lower-class and slave actors traveled through a militarized landscape full of displaced persons and the newly enslaved; together, the actors made comedy to address mixed-class, hybrid, multilingual audiences. Surveying the whole of the Plautine corpus, where slaves are central figures, and the extant fragments of early comedy, this book is grounded in the history of slavery and integrates theories of resistant speech, humor, and performance.

Shedding new light on the history of the book in antiquity, Empire of Letters tells the story of writing at Rome at the pivotal moment of transition from Republic to Empire (c. 55 BCE-15 CE). By uniting close readings of the period's major authors with detailed analysis of material texts, it argues that the physical embodiments of writing were essential to the worldviews and self-fashioning of authors whose works took shape in them. Whether in wooden tablets, papyrus book rolls, monumental writing in stone and bronze, or through the alphabet itself, Roman authors both idealized and competed with writing's textual forms.