The Oxford History of Classical Reception in English Literature (Hardback) | Released: 26 Apr 2015

The Oxford History of Classical Reception (OHCREL) is designed to offer a comprehensive investigation of the numerous and diverse ways in which literary texts of the classical world have stimulated responses and refashioning by English writers. Covering the full range of English literature from the early Middle Ages to the present day, OHCREL both synthesizes existing scholarship and presents cutting-edge new research, employing an international team of expert contributors for each of the five volumes.

OHCREL endeavours to interrogate, rather than inertly reiterate, conventional assumptions about literary 'periods', the processes of canon-formation, and the relations between literary and non-literary discourse. It conceives of 'reception' as a complex process of dialogic exchange and, rather than offering large cultural generalizations, it engages in close critical analysis of literary texts. It explores in detail the ways in which English writers' engagement with classical literature casts as much light on the classical originals as it does on the English writers' own cultural context.

This fourth volume, and second to appear in the series, covers the years 1790-1880 and explores romantic and Victorian receptions of the classics. Noting the changing fortunes of particular classical authors and the influence of developments in archaeology, aesthetics and education, it traces the interplay between classical and nineteenth-century perceptions of gender, class, religion, and the politics of republic and empire in chapters engaging with many of the major writers of this period.

About the Author:
Norman Vance is Professor of English Literature and Intellectual History at the University of Sussex. He grew up in Northern Ireland, read English at Oxford, and held a Junior Research Fellowship at New College before he moved to Sussex. He is a trustee of the English Association and has served on the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College and various international assessment boards of the Irish Research Council. He is author of The Victorians and Ancient Rome (1997) and Bible and Novel: Narrative Authority and the Death of God (2013).

Jennifer Wallace is Lecturer and Director of Studies in English and Comparative Drama at Peterhouse, Cambridge University. She read Classics and English as an undergraduate at Newnham College, Cambridge, and wrote a PhD on Shelley and Hellenism. She held a JRF at Clare College, Cambridge, before taking up her current post at Peterhouse in 1995. She serves on the jury of the annual Criticos prize, and on the committee of the triennial Cambridge Greek Play. Her publications include Shelley and Greece: Rethinking Romantic Hellenism (1997), Digging the Dirt: The Archaeological Imagination (2004) and The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy (2007).