Rewriting the ancient world. Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians in modern popular fiction

351 Pages·2017·1.389 MB·English

by  Maurice, Lisa

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
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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.
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“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).