Individual epics have been catered for by many scholarly books. However, few of these are ever easily accessible to the student of ancient literarure in translation or to the general reader. This book addresses the needs of these readers. Peter Toohey surveys all the major classical epics: he begins with Homer and concludes with an overview of the development of late ancient epic and of the interface between epic and the novel. Reading Epic offers an interpretation of the meaning (not simply a description of the story) of these poems within the likely intellectual constraints of the era in...

This work presents a comprehensive survey of the major surviving examples of Greek and Roman didactic poetry: Hesiod's Works and Days, Lucretius' On the Universe, Virgil's Georgics and Ovid's Art of Love amongst others. If didactic epic has one defining characteristic, it is instruction. All these poems were aimed at teaching a student about a concrete topic. At the same time, their poetic form makes these verse lessons highly readable pieces of literature. This volume understands reading didactic poetry as more than just teaching; it is also a leisure-time activity. The author balances a...

This text discusses aspects of antiquity. It asks the reader in how far we have reinvented antiquity, by applying modern concepts and understandings to its study. Furthermore, it challenges the notion that perceptions of the self, of modern societal and institutional structures, originated in the Enlightenment. Rather, the authors and contributors argue, there are many continuities and marked similarities between the classical and the modern world.

This volume collects and introduces some of the best writing on sexual behaviour and gender differences in ancient Greece and Rome including four chapters newly translated from German and French.For centuries discussions of sexuality and gender in the ancient world, if they took place at all, focussed on how the roles and spheres of the sexes were divided. While men occupied the public sphere of the community, ranged through the Greek and Roman worlds and participated in politics, courts, theatre and sport, women kept to the home. Sex occupied a separate sphere, in scholarly terms restricted...

Individual epics have been covered by many books, but few of these are easily accessible to the student of ancient literature or the general reader. Beginning with Homer and concluding with an overview of the development of the late ancient epic and of the interface between the epic and novel, Peter Toohey guides the reader through the major classical writers of epic.
"Reading Epic" offers an interpretation of the meaning, ' not simply a description of the story, of these poems within the intellectual constraints of the era in which they were written. In most cases these readings are...

Didactic Epic was enormously popular in the ancient world. It was used to teach Greeks and Romans technical and scientific subjects, but in verse. Epic Lessons shows how this scientific poetry was intended not just to instruct but also to entertain. Praise for its predecessor, Reading Epic 'Toohey's erudition makes the complexities and the strangeness of these ancient poems appear as clear as daylight and his enthusiasm renders them as attractive as the latest blockbuster.' - JACT Review