Bibliography

Here follows a general bibliography on ancient and modern epic. More detailed bibliographies which must be consulted will be disseminated in lectures and seminars.

Homer

Translations

Homer, The Iliad, trans. R.Lattimore (Chicago 1951).
Homer, The Odyssey, trans. R.Lattimore (Chicago 1965).
Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, trans. M.L.West (Oxford World's Classics 1988)
Greek Lyric Poetry, trans. M.L.West (Oxford World's Classics 1994)

Background and Criticism

Cairns, D., ed. Oxford Readings in Homer's Iliad (Oxford 2002)
Cohen, B. The Distaff Side: Representing the Female in Homer's Odyssey (Oxford 1995)
Finkelberg, M. 'Odysseus and the genus "hero" ' , Greece and Rome 42 (1995) 1-14
Finley, M. The World of Odysseus (1954, Penguin 1962)
Griffin, J. Homer (Oxford University Press Past Masters series 1980)
Griffin, J. Homer on Life and Death (Oxford 1980)
Griffin, J. Homer: the Odyssey (Cambridge 1987)
Jong, I de (ed.) Homer: Critical Assessments, 4 vols. (New York 1999)
Kirk, G. Homer and the Epic (Cambridge 1965)
Lord, A.B. The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass. 1960/2000)
McAuslan, I. & Walcot, P. Homer (Greece and Rome Studies Vol.4, Oxford 1998)
Morris, I. & Powell, B. (ed.) A New Companion to Homer (Leiden 1997)
Page, D. History and the Homeric Iliad (Cambridge 1959)
Postlethwaite, N. Homer’s Iliad: a Commentary on the Translation of Richmond Lattimore (Exeter 2000)
Redfield, J. Nature and Culture in the Iliad (Chicago 1975)
Schein, S. The Mortal Hero: an Introduction to Homer's Iliad ( California 1984)
Schein, S. Reading the Odyssey: Selected Interpretive Essays (Princeton 1996)
Segal, C. Singers, Heroes and Gods in the Odyssey (Ithaca/London 1994)
Silk, M. Homer: the Iliad (Cambridge 1987)
Vernant, J.-P. Mortals and Immortals: Collected Essays, ed. F. Zeitlin (Princeton 1991), esp. chapter 2 'A Beautiful Death and the Disfigured Corpse in Homeric Epic'

Virgil's Aeneid:

Translations:
Amongst the many translations of the Aeneid those that can be recommended are:
Virgil, the Aeneid, trans. David West, Penguin 1990 (in prose).
Virgil, the Aeneid, trans. R Fitzgerald, Penguin 1985 (in verse).

Background and Criticism:
T S Eliot What is a Classic? and Virgil and the Christian World, (Essays in On Poetry and Poets. London 1951).
D C Feeney The Gods in Epic, Oxford 1991.
G K Galinsky Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction, Princeton 1996.
K W Gransden Virgil: the Aeneid, Cambridge 1990 (Landmarks of World Literature Series).
K W Gransden Virgil in English, Penguin 1996.
J Griffin Virgil, Oxford 1986 (Past Masters Series).
P Hardie Virgil, Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics, Oxford 1998, with bibliography.
S J Harrison (ed.) Oxford Readings in Vergil's Aeneid, Oxford 1990.
C Martindale (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Virgil, Cambridge 1997.
I McAuslan and P Walcot (eds.) Virgil (Greece and Rome Studies), Oxford 1990.
W W Tarn & M P Charlesworth Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra, Cambridge 1965.
P Zanker The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, Ann Arbor 1988.
See also the chapters on Virgil in The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, Vol II, ed E J Kenny, Cambridge 1982, and The Oxford History of the Classical World, eds. J Boardman, J Griffin and O Murray, Oxford 1986.

Phillis Wheatley - Niobe in Distress

Robinson, W. (ed.) (1982) Critical Essays on Phillis Wheatley. New York.

Robinson, W. (1984) Phillis Wheatley and Her Writings. New York.

Wheatley, P. (2001) Complete Writings. London

Derek Walcott - Omeros and The Odyssey

Cartledge, P. (1993) "Like a Worm I' The Bud? A Heterology of Classical Greek Slavery" Greece and Rome 40.2, pp.163-79.

Ciocia, Stefania, ‘To Hell and Back: The Katabasis and the Impossibility of Epic in Derek Walcott’s Omeros.’ The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 35:2 (2000), 87-103

*Davis, G. (1997) The Poetics of Derek Walcott: Intertextual Perspectives. The South Atlantic Quarterly 96.2, Spring 1997.

Farrell, Joseph: ‘Walcott’s Omeros: The Classical Epic in a Postmodern World.’ The South Atlantic Quarterly 96:2 (1997), 247-73; rpr. in Epic Traditions in the Contemporary World: The Poetics of Community, ed. Margaret Beissinger, Jane Tylus and Susanne Wofford. Berekely, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press (1999), 270-96

Goff, Barbara and Michael Simpson, ‘The Wine-dark Caribbean? Kamau Brathwaite’s Odale’s Choice and Derek Walcott’s Omeros.’ Chapter 5 of Crossroads in the Black Aegean: Oedipus, Antigone and Dramas of the African Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2007), 219-71

Greenwood, E. (2005) "Still Going On: Temporal Adverbs and the View of the Past in Walcott's Poetry", Callaloo 28.1 pp.132-45

Hamner, R.D. (1997) Epic of the Dispossessed. Columbia/London.

Hamner, R. (2001) "Creolizing Homer for the Stage: Walcott's The Odyssey", Twentieth Century Literature, Fall 2001

Hardwick, L. (2000) Translating Words, Translating Cultures. London. (Especially Chapter 6).

Hardwick, L. (2004) "Greek Drama and Anti-Colonialism: Decolonizing Classics", in Dionysus Since 69, eds. E. Hall, F. Macintosh and A. Wrigley.

Jay, Paul, ‘Fated to Unoriginality: The Politics of Mimicry in Derek Walcott’s “Omeros”.’ Callaloo 29:2 (Spring, 2006), 545-59

Ramazani, Jahan, "The Wound of Postcolonial History: Derek Walcott’s Omeros." PMLA 112:3 (May 1997), 405-17. Rpr. in Jahan Ramazani, The Hybrid Muse: Postcolonial Poetry in English. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 49-7

Thomas, N. (1980) Derek Walcott: Poet of the Caribbean. Cardiff.

Williams, Ted, ‘Truth and Representation: The Confrontation of History and Mythology in “Omeros”.’ Callaloo 24:1 (Winter, 2001), 276-86

* = copies in Epic Ancient and Modern box.