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How do different cultures think about race? In the modern era,
racial distinctiveness has been assessed primarily in terms of a
person's physical appearance. But it was not always so. As Denise
McCoskey shows, the ancient Greeks and Romans did not use skin
colour as the basis for categorising ethnic disparity. The colour
of one's skin lies at the foundation of racial variability today
because it was used during the heyday of European exploration and
colonialism to construct a hierarchy of civilizations and then
justify slavery and other forms of economic exploitation.
Assumptions about race thus have to take into account factors other
than mere physiognomy. This is particularly true in relation to the
classical world. In fifth century Athens, racial theory during the
Persian Wars produced the categories 'Greek' and 'Barbarian', and
set them in brutal opposition to one another: a process that could
be as intense and destructive as 'black and 'white' in our own age.
Ideas about race in antiquity were therefore completely distinct
but as closely bound to political and historical contexts as those
that came later. This provocative book boldly explores the complex
matrices of race - and the differing interpretations of ancient and
modern - across epic, tragedy and the novel. Ranging from
Theocritus to Toni Morrison, and from Tacitus and Pliny to Bernal's
seminal study Black Athena, this is a powerful and original new
assessment.
The three major Roman love poets - Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid -
are celebrated for the ways in which they used social and
historical contexts, as well as a highly developed sense of place
and landscape, to inform their explorations of passion and desire.
These writers pursued both men and women, and expressed romantic
attachments to the bucolic countryside as well as to the city of
Rome. At the same time, they initiated a vibrant exchange with
other genres and authors, and explored the art of writing as much
as the experience of love itself. This new and attractive survey of
a genre that is often called elegy - because of its metre -
discusses the poets and their writings against the turbulent
backdrop of the Augustan age (31 BCE-14 CE). It examines the
literary origins of Latin elegy, highlights the poets' key themes
and traces their reception by later writers and readers.
Introducing the chief Latin elegists, as well as these poets' main
sources of inspiration (Catullus, Cornelius Gallus and earlier
Greek elegists like Euphorion of Chalcis), the book shows that love
elegy is the defining genre of Roman poetry.
The three major Roman love poets - Tibullus, Propertius and Ovid -
are celebrated for the ways in which they used social and
historical contexts, as well as a highly developed sense of place
and landscape, to inform their explorations of passion and desire.
These writers pursued both men and women, and expressed romantic
attachments to the bucolic countryside as well as to the city of
Rome. At the same time, they initiated a vibrant exchange with
other genres and authors, and explored the art of writing as much
as the experience of love itself. This new and attractive survey of
a genre that is often called elegy - because of its metre -
discusses the poets and their writings against the turbulent
backdrop of the Augustan age (31 BCE-14 CE). It examines the
literary origins of Latin elegy, highlights the poets' key themes
and traces their reception by later writers and readers.
Introducing the chief Latin elegists, as well as these poets' main
sources of inspiration (Catullus, Cornelius Gallus and earlier
Greek elegists like Euphorion of Chalcis), the book shows that love
elegy is the defining genre of Roman poetry.
How do different cultures think about race? In the modern era,
racial distinctiveness has been assessed primarily in terms of a
person's physical appearance. But it was not always so. As Denise
McCoskey shows, the ancient Greeks and Romans did not use skin
colour as the basis for categorising ethnic disparity. The colour
of one's skin lies at the foundation of racial variability today
because it was used during the heyday of European exploration and
colonialism to construct a hierarchy of civilizations and then
justify slavery and other forms of economic exploitation.
Assumptions about race thus have to take into account factors other
than mere physiognomy. This is particularly true in relation to the
classical world. In fifth century Athens, racial theory during the
Persian Wars produced the categories 'Greek' and 'Barbarian', and
set them in brutal opposition to one another: a process that could
be as intense and destructive as 'black and 'white' in our own age.
Ideas about race in antiquity were therefore completely distinct
but as closely bound to political and historical contexts as those
that came later. This provocative book boldly explores the complex
matrices of race - and the differing interpretations of ancient and
modern - across epic, tragedy and the novel. Ranging from
Theocritus to Toni Morrison, and from Tacitus and Pliny to Bernal's
seminal study Black Athena, this is a powerful and original new
assessment.
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