Living Classics Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English

This collection of essays explores the extensive use of Latin and Greek literary texts in a range of recent poetry written in English. It contains both contributions from poets, who include Tony Harrison, Seamus Heaney, and Michael Longley, talking about their uses of classical literature in their own work in lyric poetry and in theatre poetry, and essays from academic experts on the same topics.Living Classicsasks why contemporary poets are returning to making versions of and allusions to Greek and Roman literature in their work, and interrogates the parallel interest of modern classical scholars in the contemporary reception of classical texts.

S. J. Harrison is Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford and Professor of Latin Literature, University of Oxford.

Introduction: The Return of Classics, Stephen HarrisonPoets and Practice1. Horace on Teesside, Maureen Almond2. Jumping Their Bones: Translating, Transgressing and Creating, Josephine Balmer3. Reconnecting with the Classics, Robert Crawford4. Catullus in the Playground, Anna Jackson5. Lapsed Classicist, Michael LongleyPoets in the Theatre6. Weeping for Hecuba, Tony Harrison7. Title Deeds - Translating a Classic, Seamus HeaneyScholars on Poets8. The Argippaei (Herodotus 4.23) in Belfast, Maureen Alden9. Michael Longley Appropriates Latin Poetry, Brian Arkins10. The Homeric Convergences and Divergences of Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley, Oliver Taplin11. Is 'the frail silken line' Worth More than 'a fart in a bearskin'? or, How Translation Practice Matters in Poetry and Drama, Lorna Hardwick12. The figure of Electra in Sylvia Plath's poetry: A Case of Identification, Anastasia Bakogianni13. The Autobiography of the Western Subject: Carson's Geryon, Edith Hall14. 'Purple Shining Lilies' : Imagining the Aeneid in Contemporary Poetry, Rowena Fowler15. Shades of Rome in the Poetry of Derek Walcott, Emily Greenwood16. 'We'll all be Penelopes then': Art and Domesticity in American Women's Poetry, 1958-96, Isobel Hurst17. Catullus in New Zealand: Baxter and Stead, Stephen Harrison