The chapters in this book show how receptions of Greek and Roman texts, ideas, myths and visual and physical culture are at the centre of myriad debates. These debates not only investigate the historical features and subsequent impact of the ancient world but also cover related areas throughout the intervening periods - in education, artistic practice and public and private senses of cultural identity. By ‘receptions’ we mean the ways in which Greek and Roman material has been transmitted, translated, excerpted, interpreted, rewritten, re-imaged and represented. These are complex activities in which each reception ‘event’ is also part of wider processes. Interactions with a succession of contexts, both classically and non-classically orientated, combine to produce a map that is sometimes unexpectedly bumpy with its highs and lows, emergences and suppressions and, sometimes, metamorphoses. So the title of this volume refers to ‘receptions’ in the plural.
We have used the word ‘classical’ in its specific sense of reference to Greek and Roman antiquity. Additional volumes would be needed to do justice to the classical cultures of (for example) India or to the cultures of the ancient near east and their receptions. Neither have we attempted to probe the conception of the ‘classic’ in general in its relationship to matrices of receptions (for an approach to the last, see Lianeri and Zajko 2008). We have included chapters that discuss how Greek and Roman culture represents and is represented by non-western perspectives, both in antiquity (T. Harrison) and more recently (Etman, Yaari, van Zyl Smit). Each of these could also be the basis of a further volume. The chapters that discuss the interaction between Greek and/or Roman material and various contexts in western culture should not be read as identifying the origins and subsequent genealogies and importance of Greek and Roman material primarily with Europe. Ancient Greece, after all, was at the interface of west and east, and recent research in ancient history has established the cultural diversity of the ancient Mediterranean context (Davies 2002; Morris 1992; West 1997). The Romans not only drew on and refashioned Greek material but also engaged in cultural exchange across their empire, with effects right up to the present day (see Maritz 2007 and Evans 2007 for African examples). The book also shows something of the sheer diversity of western receptions and distinguishes between the different traditions and contexts from which they have emerged. This extends to exploration of ways in which western and non-western literary and artistic strands converge and redefine each other (see Davis, this volume, ch. 30).
We hope our collection is not only cheerfully and creatively anarchic but also prescient in suggesting ways in which work in the field might develop in the future. There was no ‘party line’ in the invitations and guidance given to contributors. The aim has been to produce a volume that that shows reception scholars actively at work. Contributors were asked to contextualize their discussions and to make their working methods transparent, but to avoid ‘surveys’ and to concentrate on texts, debates and trends which they judged to be of current and future importance.
In spite of the long-standing interest in the afterlife and influence of ancient texts in the field of classical learning, classical reception research as such is a fairly new area of prominence in anglophone scholarship, both within classics and in the relationship of the subject area with other disciplines (the influence of German scholarship both in Rezeptionsgeschichte and in theoretical approaches is of course extensive: see Martindale 2006). The relative newness of the specialism is reflected in the variety of backgrounds of the contributors. Some are distinguished scholars in classics or closely related fields who have developed their interest in reception as a result of questions prompted by their earlier research or in response to teaching new generations of students. Others are newer voices, some of whom have specialized in classical reception, including its theories and methods, in their doctoral and post-doctoral research. The work of early and mid-career researchers and teachers is already transforming the scope and practice of classical reception. We hope this mix of voices will enrich the debates inside and outside this volume and we only regret that the volume could not be even larger. (In a spirit of virtuous self-denial the editors sacrificed their own planned contributions.)
World History
