Classics - Literature: Reference

The third edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature is the complete and authoritative reference guide to the classical world and its literary heritage. It not only presents the reader with all the essential facts about the authors, tales, and characters from ancient myth andliterature, but it also places these details in the wider contexts of the history and society of the Greek and Roman worlds. With an extensive web of cross-references and a useful chronological table and location maps (all of which have been brought fully up to date), this volume traces thedevelopment of literary forms and the classical allusions which have become embedded in our Western culture.Extensively revised and updated since the second edition was published in 1989, the Companion acknowledges changes in the focus of scholarship over the last twenty years, through the incorporation of a far larger number of thematic entries such as medicine, friendship, science, freedom (concept of),and sexuality. These topical entries provide an excellent starting point to the exploration of their subjects in classical literature; after all, for many aspects of classical society the literature we have inherited is the primary (and sometimes the only) source material. Additions and changes havebeen made taking into account the advice of teachers and lecturers in Classics, ensuring that current educational needs are catered for.In addition to newly covered topics, the Companion still plays to its traditional strengths, with extensive biographies of classical literary figures from Aeschylus to Zeno; entries on a multitude of literary styles from biography and rhetoric to lyric poetry and epic, encompassing everything inbetween; and character entries and plot summaries for the major figures and myths in the classical canon. It is the ideal guide for students in Classics, and for all who are passionate about the vast and varied literary tradition bequeathed to us from the classical world.

This two-volume survey of Western literature in the classical period contains 47 chronologically arranged essays.

Biographical sketches of 376 Greek and Latin authors covering the years 800 B.C. to 1000 A.D. Includes a list of works of doubtful attribution and a chronological list of authors by century.

The Cambridge History of Classical Literature provides a comprehensive, critical survey of the literature of Greece and Rome from Homer till the Fall of Rome. This is the only modern work of this scope; it embodies the very considerable advances made by recent classical scholarship, and reflects too the increasing sophistication and vigour of critical work on ancient literature. The literature is presented throughout in the context of the culture and the social and hisotircal processes of which it is an integral part. The overall aim is to offer an authoritative work of reference and appraisal for one of the world's greatest continuous literary traditions. The work is divided into two volumes, each with a similar and broadly chronological structure. Among the special features are important introductory chapters by the General Editors on 'Books and Readers', discussing the conditions under which literature was written and read in antiquity. There are also extensive Appendices or Authors and Works giving detailed factual information in a convenient form. Technical annotation is otherwise kept to a minimum, and all quotations in foreign languages are translated.

This series provides individual textbooks on early Greek poetry, on Greek drama, on philosophy, history and oratory, and on the literature of the Hellenistic period and of the Empire. A chapter on books and readers in the Greek world concludes Part 4. Each part has its own appendix of authors and works, a list of works cited, and an index.