Rewriting the ancient world. Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in modern popular fiction PDF
Preview Rewriting the ancient world. Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in modern popular fiction
Rewriting the Ancient World Metaforms Studies in the Reception of Classical Antiquity Editors-in-Chief Almut-Barbara Renger (Freie Universität Berlin) Jon Solomon (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) John T. Hamilton (Harvard University) Editorial Board Kyriakos Demetriou (University of Cyprus) Constanze Güthenke (Oxford University) Miriam Leonard (University College London) Mira Seo (Yale-nus College) VOLUME 10 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/srca Rewriting the Ancient World Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in Modern Popular Fiction Edited by Lisa Maurice LEIDEN | BOSTON Cover illustration: By Lisa Maurice The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017015579 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 2212-9405 isbn 978-90-04-34014-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-34638-3 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner. “Cui dono lepidum novum libellum arida modo pumice expolitum?” tibi, amori, quem amo et semper amabo. … In Memory of Dr. Lana Schwebel z”l ∵ Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Contributors x Introduction: The Ancient World and Popular Fiction 1 Lisa Maurice Part 1 Rewriting the Classics in Crime Fiction and Thrillers 1 From I, Claudius to Private Eyes: Rome and the Detective in Popular Fiction 19 Lisa Maurice 2 A Roman and a Foreigner: Lindsey Davis’s New Roman Detective Series 49 Anat Koplowitz-Breier 3 “An Open Account from the Past Always Needs to be Settled”: Chimaira (2001) / The Ancient Curse (2010) and Receiving the Past 67 Claudia Fratini Part 2 Rewriting the Ancient World in a Modern Setting 4 Going Home: Xenophon’s Anabasis in Sol Yurick’s The Warriors (1965) 87 Eran Almagor 5 The Eagle and the Mockingjay: Reality Television as Roman Gladiator Culture 114 Dor Yaccobi 6 “Atalanta Just Married”: A Case Study in Greek Mythology-Based Fan Fiction 131 Amanda Potter viii Contents Part 3 Rewriting Myths of Classical Literature 7 The Loves of Achilles: From Epic to Popular Fiction 153 Anne Sinha 8 “Home Is Behind, The World Ahead”: Reading Tolkien’s The Hobbit as a Story of Xenia or Homeric Hospitality 174 Hamish Williams 9 Cupid and Psyche: A Love Story (?) in Comics and Children’s Literature 198 Lily Glasner Part 4 Rewriting Jews and Christians in the Ancient World 10 Sadducee and Pharisee in “The Antagonists” by E.K. Gann 221 Haim Perlmutter 11 Emotion and Reception of the Ancient World in Lew Wallace’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) 255 Emily Chow-Kambitsch 12 Jewish Women Writing Historical Novels Based on Rabbinic Sources 277 Tal Ilan Some Concluding Thoughts 298 Bibliography 303 Index of Subjects 331 Index of Ancient Sources 339 Acknowledgements This book first began as a result of a lack I perceived whereby the intersec- tion between popular fiction and the ancient world had yet to be studied in any systematic way. From the casual mention of this inexplicable gap to Nick Lowe at a delightful conference in Liverpool, the idea for a conference ballooned quickly, encouraged at every stage by Nick and our other gracious keynote speakers, Edith Hall and Simon Goldhill. Entitled, “From I, Claudius to Private Eyes, the conference took place from 16-18 June 2014, at Bar-Ilan University. It could not have taken place, however, without the support of the Lechter Institute for Literary Research and the Lewis Family Foundation for International Conferences in the Humanities; Andrew Goldman of Tsemed, a bighearted and openhanded friend; and most of all Lilly and Philip Schwebel and Pam Swickley, who generously donated financial support matched only by gracious enthusiasm, in memory of their daughter and sister Lana Schwebel z”l, tragically taken from this world at far too young an age. This volume is as much tribute to her, and to her wonderful family, as it is a work of scholarship. On the more practical production side I must thank the anonymous re- viewers of this volume, who did so much to improve it, and also the wonder- ful team at Brill, who worked so hard to produce this book, especially Tessel Jonquière whose patience and helpfulness make her such a pleasure to work with throughout. I am also inordinately grateful to the wonderful contribu- tors to this book, who worked to deadlines, responded to emails, and remained co-operative to the end, making the venture an unusually enjoyable one to co-ordinate. Finally, as always my grateful thanks and love go to my family, whose sup- port and enthusiasm know no bounds, and who kept life busy by insisting on marrying and producing offspring during the course of the development of this volume. My husband, sons, daughters, son-in-law and daughters-in-law, as well as my newly arrived grandson are what keep me sane during the often frenzied rush for deadlines! Thank you for everything. List of Contributors Eran Almagor is the co-editor of Ancient Ethnography: New Approaches (Bloomsbury, 2013). He is the author of papers and chapters on the history of the Achaemenid Empire, its image in Greek literature (especially in Herodotus and Ctesias), the Lives of Plutarch and Greek Imperial writers (in particular Strabo, Josephus and Lucian. He is also interested in the reception of antiquity in modern popular culture Claudia Caia Julia Fratini is currently a Lecturer in the Department of English Studies, at the UNISA. Her interests range from Classical Reception in contemporary literature to creative expression in World War II, with specific focus on the Italian POW’s detained in South Africa. She is currently working towards a PhD which explores how the past is received and reworked within the narrative text in the noted Italian author and archaeologist Valerio Massimo Manfredi’s popular fiction. Claudia is also actively involved in the John Povey Centre in the Department of English, where she manages and teaches the Creative Writing programme. Amongst other things she dabbles in the poetic arts and describes herself as an experi- menter of words and image. Emily Chow-Kambitsch completed a PhD in Classics at University College London in 2016. Her research to date focuses on dynamics of emotion in popular cultural representations of ancient Rome. She is currently preparing a manuscript for a monograph applying this approach to the narrative tradition of Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ and its theatre and film adaptations through 1931. Her other research interests include spatiality, material culture, and antiquity in the twenty-first century. Lily Glasner teaches courses in Children’s Literature and Medieval Literature at Bar Ilan University and at the Kibbutzim College of Education. Amongst her publica- tions are: “Taking a Zebra to Vegas: Allegorical Reality in Percy Jackson & the Olympians” (2012); “Revisiting the Concepts of Child and Childhood in light of the Autobiographic Testimonies of Augustine and Guibert of Nogent” (2014, Hebrew); “But what does it all mean?”: Religious Reality as a Political Call in the Chronicles of Narnia” (2014); “Embracing Childish Perspective: Rutu Modan’s A Royal Banquet with the Queen” (2015).
Description:The list of books you might like
