Roman Literature and Thought

. The module aims to provide postgraduate training in the literary interpretation of classical Latin texts in a variety of forms and genres. It runs as 10 two-hours seminars spaced over the first and second terms of the course, and will involve developing, applying and putting into practice the techniques and methodologies studied in the first term’s core module, ‘Approaching Ancient Texts’. Students’ skills in reading Latin literature will be brought up to postgraduate level, and they will acquire the knowledge and skills required to respond critically to the most advanced classical scholarship. The module takes the form of a weekly seminar, in which we focus on the detailed reading, discussion and interpretation of two main texts or sections of classical Latin texts, one in verse and one in prose, alongside an anthology of further related texts, commentaries and reference works. Latin texts are chosen on a yearly basis in response to current critical debates and the most recent and original scholarship. Each session will be devoted to a section of text (students will be asked to prepare in advance by reading the text together with selected scholarship) and take the form of in-depth critical discussion following prepared oral presentations. Students will be able to significantly enhance the knowledge and skills acquired at undergraduate level, exchanging and developing ideas and reading strategies in a supportive and stimulating environment. Assessment consists of a final 5,000-word essay, topics for which we will discuss at the end of term 1. Students can expect to be doing 9-10 hours work for each seminar.

Please note: in 2025-6 we will meet in even-numbered weeks (i.e. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10) across both terms 1 and 2.

Time and place: Mondays 2-4pm, FAB 2.15

By the end of this module students should expect to have:

• acquired the ability to read Latin literary texts fluently and independently, in a range of genres and forms;
• developed the ability to employ a variety of strategies and techniques of interpretation and philological analysis in their close reading of classical texts;
• acquired the knowledge and skills required to respond critically to the most advanced classical scholarship;
• developed into autonomous researchers with the skills and expertise required to produce professionally laid-out papers, develop extended scholarly arguments, and to give confident, well-organised and fluent presentations.

Assessment deadline for title approval: March XXXX (tbc) 2026

Assessment submission deadline: May XXX (tbc) 2026, 12 noon

Syllabus for 2025-6

Text 1 (Term 1): Seneca, Medea

Commentary: A.J.Boyle (2014) Seneca Medea. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Oxford University Press

Text 2 (Term 2): Tacitus, Agricola

Commentary: A.J.Woodman with C.S.Kraus (2014) Tacitus Agricola. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics, Cambridge University Press.

For each seminar: sections of text to read in Latin in advance of each session are indicated below, as is recommended bibliography. Please read the texts alongside the commentaries indicated above. You are not obliged to read every single item of bibliography, but do as much as you can. If there is anything you cannot find, let me know and I will be able to help. I also encourage you to follow up any further bibliographical leads that you come across in the recommended scholarship and that you feel is relevant for your weekly presentation. For each week, you are asked to prepare a 5-10-minute critical summary of the set passage or a shorter part of it (c.1000 words if you are writing it out), which you will present orally at the start of the seminar. In this critical summary, you should attempt to give a tight, detailed account of content and form and to highlight what you consider to be key points of interest or difficulties of interpretation; you may, in doing this, also want to show awareness of, or mention, relevant scholarship, but are not expected to give a review of the literature. In the seminar itself, we will address difficulties in understanding, points of interpretation, and nuances in/differences between various scholarly approaches to Seneca and Tacitus.

TERM 1:

Bibliography for Senecan tragedy and Seneca’s Medea [please try to read some of these items over the summer, starting with the asterixed items]

*Authors, various, Roman Medea, Special edition of Ramus 2012, 41.1-2.

Benton, C. (2003) ‘Bringing the other to center stage: Seneca’s Medea and the anxieties of imperialism’ Arethusa 10.3.

Batistella, C. (2021) ‘Medea and the joy of killing’ G&R 68.1.

______ (2015) ‘Medea reaches maturity: On Ovidian intertextuality in Sen.Med.905-15’ The Classical Journal (Classical Association of the Middle West and South) 110.4.

Bexley, E. (2016) ‘Recognition and the character of Seneca’s Medea’ The Cambridge Classical Journal 62.

*Boyle, A. J. (2014) Seneca Medea. Edited with Introduction, Translation and Commentary, Oxford University Press. [read introduction over the summer]

*______ (1997) Tragic Seneca: An essay in the theatrical tradition. London: Routledge.

*Boyle, A. J., ed. *1983) Seneca Tragicus: Ramus essays on Senecan drama. Berwick, Australia: Aureal.

Campbell, C.M. (2019) ‘Medea’s solipsism: language, power and identity in Seneca’s Medea’ Ramus 48.1

Fantham, E. (1975) ‘Virgil’s Dido and Seneca’s tragic heroines’ Greece and Rome 22:1–10.

*Fitch, J. G., ed. (2008) Seneca. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

Frankilinos, T.E. (2020) ‘The cause of Idmon’s death at Sen.Med.652-3 and Valerius Flaccus 5.2-3’ CQ 70.1.

*Fyfe, H. (1983) ‘An analysis of Seneca’s Medea’ In Seneca Tragicus: Ramus essays on Senecan drama. Edited by A. J. Boyle, 77–93. Berwick, Australia: Ramus.

Gill, C. (1987) ‘Two monologues of self-division: Euripides, Medea 1021–80, and Seneca, Medea 893–977.’ In Homo viator: Classical essays for John Bramble. Edited by Michael Whitby, Philip R. Hardie, and Mary Whitby, 25–37. Bristol, UK: Bristol Classical.

Guastella, G. (2001) ‘Virgo, coniunx, mater: the wrath of Seneca’s Medea’ Classical Antiquity 20.2.

Henry, D., and Walker, B. (1967) ‘Loss of identity: Medea superest? A study of Seneca’s Medea’ Classical Philology 62:169–181.

Hine, H.M. (1989) ‘Medea versus the chorus: Seneca Medea 1-115’ Mnemosyne 42.3-4.

*Ker, J. (2006) ‘Seneca, man of many genres’ In Seeing Seneca whole: Perspectives on philosophy, poetry, and politics. Edited by Katharina Volk and Gareth D. Williams, 19–41. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.

Krill, R.M. (1973) ‘Allusions in Seneca's Medea 56-74’ The Classical Journal 68.3.

Lima, P.A. (2021) ‘Monstrous emotions in Seneca’s Medea’ Greece and Rome 68.1.

Lisl, W. (2019) ‘Placing Medea: A topographical approach to Seneca’s tragedy’ Latomus 78.3.

______ (2018) ‘Murder, interrupted: Seneca’s Medea and the case of the second child’ Helios 45.1.

______ (2012) ‘The metamorphoses of Seneca’s Medea’ Ramus 4.1-2.

*Littlewood, C. (2004) Self-representation and illusion in Senecan tragedy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

McAuley, M. (2015) Reproducing Rome, Oxford. (ch. 5 On Medea and Phaedra)

*Nussbaum. M. (1997) ‘Serpents in the soul: A reading of Seneca’s Medea’ in J.J. Clauss and S.I.Johnson (eds.) Medea: Essays on Medea in Myth, Literature, Philosophy and Art, Princeton NJ.

Rimell, V. (2012) 'The labour of empire: womb and world in Seneca's Medea’ in SIFC 105: 211-37.

Schiesaro, A. (1997) ‘Passion, reason, and knowledge in Seneca’s tragedies’ In The passions in Roman thought and literature. Edited by Susanna Morton Braund and Christopher Gill, 89–111. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Schiesaro, A. (2003) The Passions in Play: Thyestes and the dynamics of Senecan drama. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

Segal, C. (1983) Boundary violation and the landscape of the self in Senecan tragedy. Antike und Abenland 29:172–187.

Staley, G. (2010) Seneca and the Idea of Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.

Star, C. (2006) ‘Commanding constantia in Senecan tragedy’ Transactions of the American Philological Association 136: 207–244.

Trinacty, C. (2007) ‘Seneca’s Heroides: Elegy in Seneca’s Medea’ The Classical journal (Classical Association of the Middle West and South) 103.1.

Winter, K. (2021) ‘ “Now I am Medea”: Gender, Identity and the Birth of Revenge in Seneca’s Medea" in L.Dawson and F. McHardy (eds.) (2021) Revenge and Gender in Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Literature, Edinburgh.

 

Seminar 1: Medea, 1-115 (Monday week 2).

Readings for this week:

Boyle commentary, +

Hine 1989

Krill 1973

Star 2006

Trinacty 2007

 

Seminar 2: Medea 388-548 (Monday Week 4)

Readings for this week:

Boyle commentary, +

Benton 2003

Lisl 2012

McAuley 2015

Walsh 2019

 

Seminar 3: Medea 670-848 (Monday week 6)

Readings for this week:

Boyle commentary, +

Frankilinos 2020

Lima 2021

Rimell 2012

 

Seminar 4: Medea 893-1027 (Monday week 8)

Readings for this week:

Boyle commentary, +

Batistella 2021

Bexley 2016

Gill 1987

Guastella 2001

Henry and Walker 1987

Lisl 2018

Winter 2018

 

Seminar 5: open seminar to discuss text as a whole and coursework essay (Monday week 10).

 

 

TERM 2

Bibliography for Tacitus’ Agricola

[Please try to read asterisked items, which are more general/introductory, during the break between terms]

Ahl, F. (1984) “The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome.” AJP 105: 174–208.

*Ash, R. (2006) Tacitus. London: Bristol Classical Press.

*Ash, R. (ed.) (2012) Tacitus. Oxford Readings in Classical Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bastomsky, S.J. (1985) ‘The Not-so-perfect Man : Some Ambiguities in Tacitus' Picture of Agricola’ Latomus, T. 44, Fasc. 2, pp. 388-393.

Clarke, K. (1999) Between Geography and History, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Clarke, K. (2001) ‘An island nation: Re-reading Tacitus' Agricola’, Journal of Roman Studies 91:94–112.

Hägg, T. (2012) The Art of Biography in Antiquity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

*Harrison, S.J. (2004) ‘Historiography and biography’ in S.J. Harrison (ed.) A Companion to Latin Literature, 241-56, Malden.

Kemezis, A.M. (2016) ‘ "Inglorius labor"? The Rhetoric of Glory and Utility in Plutarch's "Precepts" and Tacitus' "Agricola"’, The Classical World, Vol. 110.1: pp. 87-117.

Kraus, C.S. (ed.) (1999) The Limits of Historiography: genre and narrative in ancient historical texts, Leiden\: Brill.

*Kraus, C.S. and Woodman, A.J. (1997) Latin Historians. Greece and Rome New Surveys in the Classics 27, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Krebs, C.B. (2021) ‘Annum quiete et otio transit: Tacitus Ag.6.3 and Sallust on liberty, tyranny and human dignity’ V.Pagán (ed.) A Companion to Tacitus, Oxford: Blackwell, 333-45.

Lavan, M. (2011) ‘Slavishness in Britain and Rome in Tacitus’ ‘Agricola’, The Classical Quarterly 61.1.

Lavan, M. (2013) Slaves to Rome. Paradigms of Empire in Roman Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Liebeschuetz, W. (1966) ‘The theme of liberty in the Agricola of Tacitus’, CQ 16.

McGing, B.C. (1982) ‘Synkrisis in Tacitus' Agricola’, Hermathena 132:15–25.

O’Gorman, E. (2020) Tacitus' history of politically effective speech: truth to power. London: Bloomsbury.

Plass, P. (1988) Wit and the Writing of History: The Rhetoric of Historiography in Imperial Rome. Madison, Wisc.

Poulsen, A.D. (2017) ‘The language of freedom and slavery in Tacitus’ Agricola’ Mnemosyne, Vol. 70.5: pp. 834-858.

Sailor, D. (2004) ‘Becoming Tacitus: Significance and inconsequentiality in the prologue of Agricola.’ Classical Antiquity 23:139–177.

*Sailor, D. (2012) ‘The Agricola’ in V.Pagán (ed.) A Companion to Tacitus, Oxford: Blackwell, 23-44.

*Sailor, D. (2008) Writing and Empire in Tacitus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Turner, A.J. (1997) ‘Approaches to Tacitus' "Agricola"’, Latomus 56.3.

Whitmarsh, T. (2006) “This in-between book”: Language, politics and genre in the Agricola. In The limits of ancient biography. Edited by Brian C. McGing and J. Mossman, 305–333. Swansea: Classical Press of Wales.

*Woodman, A.J. (ed.) (2009) The Cambridge Companion to Tacitus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Woolf, G. (2011) Tales of the Barbarians. Ethnography and Empire in the Roman West. Malden MA and Oxford.

 

 

Seminar 1: Agricola 1-10 (Week 2)

Woodman-Kraus commentary +

Sailor 2004

Whitmarsh 2006

Turner 1997

Krebs 2021

 

Seminar 2: Agricola 11-22 (Week 4)

Woodman-Kraus commentary +

Liebeschuetz 1966

Bastromsky 1985

Clark 1999, 2001

Woolf 2011, esp 89-92.

 

Seminar 3: Agricola 23-34 (week 6)

Woodman-Kraus commentary +

Lavan 2011

Kemezis 2016

 

Seminar 4: Agricola 35-45 (week 8)

Woodman-Kraus comm +

Poulsen 2017

McGing 1982

Seminar 5: open seminar to discuss text as a whole and coursework (week 10)