Edith Hall

‘Wonderful and timely ... Hugely recommended’ STEPHEN FRY What do you and an ancient philosopher have in common? It turns out much more than you might think... Aristotle was an extraordinary thinker yet he was preoccupied by an ordinary question: how to be happy. In this handbook to his timeless teachings, Professor Edith Hall shows how ancient thinking is precisely what we need today, even if you don’t know your Odyssey from your Iliad. In ten practical lessons you can learn how to make good decisions, how to ace an interview, how to choose a partner and how to face death. This is advice that won’t go out of fashion. ‘A beguiling cross between Mary Beard and Mary Poppins’ Observer

How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life

Aristotle’s Way

An acclaimed classics scholar dissects the mindset of the ancient Greeks, beyond their invention of democracy, theatre and philosophy, discussing how their achievements were due as much to their collective spirit of individuality as their mariners' contact with diverse people in distant lands. 10,000 first printing.

From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

Introducing the Ancient Greeks

Originally published: London: The Bodley Head, 2018.

Aristotle's Way

a cultural history of Homer's Odyssey

The return of Ulysses

from Bronze Age seafarers to navigators of the western mind

Introducing the ancient Greeks

Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy (Oxford Classical Monographs)

Inventing the Barbarian

hoe oude filosofie je leven kan veranderen

Wat zou Aristoteles doen?

Henry Stead

A People’s History of Classics explores the influence of the classical past on the lives of working-class people, whose voices have been almost completely excluded from previous histories of classical scholarship and pedagogy, in Britain and Ireland from the late 17th to the early 20th century. This volume challenges the prevailing scholarly and public assumption that the intimate link between the exclusive intellectual culture of British elites and the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans and their languages meant that working-class culture was a ‘Classics-Free Zone’. Making use of diverse sources of information, both published and unpublished, in archives, museums and libraries across the United Kingdom and Ireland, Hall and Stead examine the working-class experience of classical culture from the Bill of Rights in 1689 to the outbreak of World War II. They analyse a huge volume of data, from individuals, groups, regions and activities, in a huge range of sources including memoirs, autobiographies, Trade Union collections, poetry, factory archives, artefacts and documents in regional museums. This allows a deeper understanding not only of the many examples of interaction with the Classics, but also what these cultural interactions signified to the working poor: from the promise of social advancement, to propaganda exploited by the elites, to covert and overt class war. A People’s History of Classics offers a fascinating and insightful exploration of the many and varied engagements with Greece and Rome among the working classes in Britain and Ireland, and is a must-read not only for classicists, but also for students of British and Irish social, intellectual and political history in this period. Further, it brings new historical depth and perspectives to public debates around the future of classical education, and should be read by anyone with an interest in educational policy in Britain today.

Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland 1689 to 1939

A People's History of Classics

Explains the reasons for the Athenian fascination with the barbarian world; the Greek plays set against the historical background of the Panhellenic wars, and the establishment of an Athenian empire based on democracy and slavery; the concept of the barbarian as the negative embodiment of Athenian civic ideals; the treatment of foreigners in Homer and in tragedy.

Greek Self-definition Through Tragedy

Justine McConnell

This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989 explores the diverse ways that contemporary world fiction has engaged with ancient Greek myth. Whether as a framing device, or a filter, or via resonances and parallels, Greek myth has proven fruitful for many writers of fiction since the end of the Cold War. This volume examines the varied ways that writers from around the world have turned to classical antiquity to articulate their own contemporary concerns. Featuring contributions by an international group of scholars from a number of disciplines, the volume offers a cutting-edge, interdisciplinary approach to contemporary literature from around the world. Analysing a range of significant authors and works, not usually brought together in one place, the book introduces readers to some less-familiar fiction, while demonstrating the central place that classical literature can claim in the global literary curriculum of the third millennium. The modern fiction covered is as varied as the acclaimed North American television series The Wire, contemporary Arab fiction, the Japanese novels of Haruki Murakami and the works of New Zealand's foremost Maori writer, Witi Ihimaera.

Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989

Whether they focus on the bewitching song of the Sirens, his cunning escape from the cave of the terrifying one-eyed Cyclops, or the vengeful slaying of the suitors of his beautiful wife Penelope, the stirring adventures of Ulysses/Odysseus are amongst the most durable in human culture. The picaresque return of the wandering pirate-king is one of the most popular texts of all time, crossing East-West divides and inspiring poets and film-makers worldwide. But why, over three thousand years, has the Odyssey's appeal proved so remarkably resilient and long-lasting? In her much-praised book Edith Hall explains the enduring fascination of Homer's epic in terms of its extraordinary susceptibility to adaptation. Not only has the story reflected a myriad of different agendas, but - from the tragedies of classical Athens to modern detective fiction, film, travelogue and opera - it has seemed perhaps uniquely fertile in generating new artistic forms. Cultural texts as diverse as Joyce's Ulysses, Suzanne Vega's Calypso, Monteverdi's Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, the Coen Brothers' O Brother Where Art Thou?, Daniel Vigne's Le Retour de Martin Guerre and Anthony Minghella's Cold Mountain all show that Odysseus is truly a versatile hero. His travels across the wine-dark Aegean are journeys not just into the mind of one of the most brilliantly creative of all the ancient Greek writers. They are as much a voyage beyond the boundaries of a narrative which can plausibly lay claim to being the quintessential global phenomenon.

A Cultural History of Homer's Odyssey

The Return of Ulysses

This is an invaluable introduction to ancient Greek tragedy which discusses every surviving play in detail and provides all the background information necessary for understanding the context and content of the plays. Edith Hall argues that the essential feature of the genre is that it always depicts terrible human suffering and death, but in a way that invites philosophical enquiry into their causes and effects, This enquiry was played out in the bright sunlight of open-air theatre, which became a key marker of the boundary between living and dead. The first half of the book is divided into four chapters which address the social and physical contexts in which the plays were performed, the contribution of the poets, actors, funders, and audiences, the poetic composition of the texts, their performance conventions, main themes, and focus on religion, politics, and the family. The second half consists of individual essays on each of the surviving thirty-three plays by the Greek tragedians, and an account of the recent performance of Greek tragic theatre and tragic fragments. An up-to-date 'Suggestions for further reading' is included.

Suffering under the Sun

Greek Tragedy

Richard Alston

Laura Proffitt

Evidence relating to the 'real world' of antiquity - inscriptions, historiography and legal speeches - has dominated studies of ancient Greek and Roman slavery, although providing few direct accounts by slaves of their subjective experiences. Yet the imaginative fictions produced by the ancient psyche in its literature and art provide many representations and discussions of what it felt like to be a slave. This volume provides a sustained discussion of the theory and practice of handling ancient poetry and images in order to enhance our understanding of the way that slavery was experienced by both slaves and their owners in the ancient world. Twelve essays by an international team of specialists develop a variety of theoretical positions, reading practices and interpretive strategies for recovering the psychological, emotional and social impact of ancient slavery from Homer, Aristotle, Greek drama, visual images, Roman poetry and imperial Roman dream interpretation.

Reading Ancient Slavery

Peter Swallow

This volume sets out to discuss a crucial question for ancient comedy – what makes Aristophanes funny? Too often Aristophanes' humour is taken for granted as merely a tool for the delivery of political and social commentary. But Greek Old Comedy was above all else designed to amuse people, to win the dramatic competition by making the audience laugh the hardest. Any discussion of Aristophanes therefore needs to take into account the ways in which his humour actually works. This question is addressed in two ways. The first half of the volume offers an in-depth discussion of humour theory – a field heretofore largely overlooked by classicists and Aristophanists – examining various theoretical models within the specific context of Aristophanes' eleven extant plays. In the second half, contributors explore Aristophanic humour more practically, examining how specific linguistic techniques and performative choices affect the reception of humour, and exploring the range of subjects Aristophanes tackles as vectors for his comedy. A focus on performance shapes the narrative, since humour lives or dies on the stage – it is never wholly comprehensible on the page alone.

Theory and Practice

Aristophanic Humour

This is the first book-length study of the classicism of Tony Harrison, one of the most important contemporary poets in England and the world. It argues that his unique and politically radical classicism is inextricable from his core notion that poetry should be a public property in which communal problems are shared and crystallised, and that the poet has a responsibility to speak in a public voice about collective and political concerns. Enriched by Edith Hall's longstanding friendship with Harrison and involvement with his most recent drama, inspired by Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, it also asserts that his greatest innovations in both form and style have been direct results of his intense engagements with individual works of ancient literature and his belief that the ancient Greek poetic imagination was inherently radical. Tony Harrison's large body of work, for which he has won several major and international prizes, and which features on the UK National Curriculum, ranges widely across long and short poems, plays, translations and film poems. Having studied Classics at Grammar School and University and having translated ancient poets from Aeschylus to Martial and Palladas, Harrison has been immersed in the myths, history, literary forms and authorial voices of Mediterranean antiquity for his entire working life and his classical interests are reflected in every poetic genre he has essayed, from epigrams and sonnets to original stage plays, translations of Greek drama and Racine, to his experimental and harrowing film poems, where he has pioneered the welding of tightly cut video materials to tightly phrased verse forms. This volume explores the full breadth of his oeuvre, offering an insightful new perspective on a writer who has played an important part in shaping our contemporary literary landscape.

Poet of Radical Classicism

Tony Harrison

"Wonderful…a thoughtful discussion of what made [the Greeks] so important, in their own time and in ours." —Natalie Haynes, Independent The ancient Greeks invented democracy, theater, rational science, and philosophy. They built the Parthenon and the Library of Alexandria. Yet this accomplished people never formed a single unified social or political identity. In Introducing the Ancient Greeks, acclaimed classics scholar Edith Hall offers a bold synthesis of the full 2,000 years of Hellenic history to show how the ancient Greeks were the right people, at the right time, to take up the baton of human progress. Hall portrays a uniquely rebellious, inquisitive, individualistic people whose ideas and creations continue to enthrall thinkers centuries after the Greek world was conquered by Rome. These are the Greeks as you’ve never seen them before.

Introducing the Ancient Greeks: From Bronze Age Seafarers to Navigators of the Western Mind

Fiona Macintosh

Amanda Wrigley

Greek tragedy is currently being performed more frequently than at any time since classical antiquity. This lavishly illustrated book is the first attempt fully to document and explain its revival. It assembles fourteen essays by specialists from classics, theater studies, and the professional theater, who relate the recent production history of Greek tragedy to social and academic trends.

Greek Tragedy at the Dawn of the Third Millennium

Dionysus Since 69

An exploration of the diverse uses and abuses of Greek myth in fiction internationally since 1989.

Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction Since 1989

In this pioneering study Edith Hall explores the numerous different ways in which we can understand the relationship between the real, social world in which the Athenians lived and the theatrical roles that they invented. In twelve studies of role types and the theatrical conventions that contributed to their creation - including women in childbirth, drowning barbarians, horny satyrs, allegorical representations of Comedy, peasant farmers, tragic masks, and solo sung arias - she advances the argument that the interface between ancient Greek drama and social reality must be understood as a complicated and incessant process of mutual cross-pollination.

Interactions between Ancient Greek Drama and Society

The Theatrical Cast of Athens

Von der Kraft und Faszination der griechischen Antike Sie waren die Erfinder der Demokratie, Begründer der Philosophie, Schöpfer unsterblicher Mythen – doch was genau war das Erfolgsgeheimnis der antiken Griechen und was verbindet uns mit ihnen? Edith Hall, Professorin am Londoner King’s College und eine der weltweit profiliertesten Altertumsforscherinnen, untersucht zehn Charaktereigenschaften, die allen griechischen Völkern gemeinsam waren. Über die Jahrtausende hinweg lernen wir so die wissbegierigen, humorvollen wie kompetitiven Menschen kennen, die als Seefahrer in neue Gebiete vorstießen, sich im Wettkampf in Olympia oder im Redegefecht maßen. Wir erfahren, was die Griechen dachten und fühlten, über welche Witze sie lachten – und es entsteht eine ebenso farbige wie kurzweilig-moderne Geschichte, die uns den Mythen und Göttern, Helden und Menschen so nahe bringt wie nie.

Edith Hall

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