Shakespeare's Romans are intensely concerned with "constancy." Geoffrey Miles traces the Stoic origins of this Roman principle of being "always the same" and explores the varying forms it takes in writers such as Cicero, Seneca, and Montaigne. Building on this genealogy of constancy, Miles reads Shakespeare's Roman plays as reworkings of three figures found in Plutarch: the constant Brutus, the inconstant Antony, and the obstinate Coriolanus. The tragedies of these characters act out the attractions, flaws, and self-contradictions of constancy, and the tragicomic failure of the Roman hope...

Classical Mythology in English Literature brings together a range of English versions of three classical myths. It allows students to explore the ways in which they have been reinterpreted and reinvented by writers throughout history. Beginning with a concise introduction to the principle Greco-Roman gods and heroes, the anthology then focuses on three stories:
* Orpheus, the great musician and his quest to free his wife Eurydice from death
* Venus and Adonis, the love goddess and the beautiful youth she loved
* Pygmalion, the master sculptor who fell in love with his...