Ayelet Haimson Lushkov

Katherine Wasdin

William Brockliss

Pramit Chaudhuri

This collection brings together leading experts in a number of fields of the humanities to offer a new perspective on the classical tradition. Drawing on reception studies, philology and early modern studies, the essays explore the interaction between literary criticism and the multiple cultural contexts in which texts were produced, discovered, appropriated and translated. The intersection of Realpolitik and textual criticism, poetic and musical aesthetics, and authority and self-fashioning all come under scrutiny. The canonical Latin writers and their subsequent reception form the backbone of the volume, with a focus on the European Renaissance. It thus marks a reconnection between classical and early modern studies and the concomitant rapprochement of philological and cultural historical approaches to texts and other works of art. This book will be of interest to scholars in classics, Renaissance studies, comparative literature, English, Italian and art history.

An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Classical Tradition

Reception and the Classics

If the Middle Ages form the present-day backdrop to the continents of Westeros and Essos, then antiquity is their resonant past. The Known World is haunted by the remnants of distant and powerful civilizations, without whose presence the novels of George R. R. Martin and the ever popular HBO show would lose much of their meaning and appeal. In this essential sequel to Carolyne Larrington's Winter is Coming: The Medieval World of Game of Thrones, Ayelet Haimson Lushkov explores the echoes, from the Summer Islands to Storm's End, of a rich antique history. She discusses, for example, the convergence of ancient Rome and the reach, scope, and might of the Valyrian Freehold. She shows how the wanderings of Tyrion Lannister replay the journeys of Odysseus and Aeneas. She suggests that the War of the Five Kings resembles the War of the Four Emperors (68-69 AD). She also demonstrates just how the Wall and the Wildlings advancing on it connect with Hadrian's bulwark against fierce tribes of Picts. This book reveals the remarkable extent to which the entire Game of Thrones universe is animated by its ancient past.

You Win or You Die

An innovative, literary approach to historical accounts of politics, this book reveals the wide-ranging significance of Roman republican magistracy.

Ayelet Haimson Lushkov

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