Review by Choice Review
This book could serve as the course in classical literature one never had--but should have--and Jenkyns (Univ. of Oxford, UK) may be the Oxford don one always wanted as a tutor. Jenkyns surveys the broad scope of Greek and Roman literary history, successfully balancing coverage of genres and major literary authors through the period extending from the Homeric age to the Augustan age and into the second century CE. Although some may reasonably wonder whether in the age of Google and Wikipedia, students will find a book like this compelling or useful, one cannot help but think they jolly well should. The succinctness of Jenkyns's summaries, the quality of his explication, and the insightfulness of his comments are consistently superior to the average introductory material readers will encounter online, in reference sources, or even in the standard anthologies. Because of its erudite yet accessible narrative, this book is an exemplary introduction to its subject and an excellent refresher for those who teach any of the covered authors or periods; it will also teach teachers more than a few things they have overlooked in their own survey courses. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Alan P. Church, Dickinson State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
A noted classicist (professor emeritus of the classical tradition, Univ. of Oxford), Jenkyns's diverse interests have resulted in books on Jane Austen and Westminster Abbey in addition to important works on Virgil, Sappho, and the Victorian reception of Greek and Latin culture. This new book is a concise, accessible historical overview of Greek and Latin literature, beginning with Homer and ending with the Roman novels Satyrica and the Golden Ass. Rather than burying the reader in scholarly technicalities, Jenkyns presents his exploration in terms of vigorous and insightful interpretations of the canonical works. In this, the author often takes a polemical stance, challenging conventional popular readings, such as the nature of tragedy in Antigone or gender in Sappho. Jenkyns's analysis ranges over epic, lyric, oratory, philosophical dialog, drama, and the novel. He also treats the great historians Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus from a literary perspective. VERDICT A rich, witty, perceptive, and brief account of the Greek and Latin classics and their importance, both in themselves and in their enduring influence on the Western world. One of the best introductions available to the general reader.-Thomas L. -Cooksey, formerly with Armstrong -Atlantic State Univ., Savannah © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A deft distillation of 1,000 years of literature. Classicist Jenkyns (Emeritus, Classical Tradition/Univ. of Oxford; God, Space, and the City in the Roman Imagination, 2014, etc.) crafts a concise and spirited overview of poetry, drama, and prose from Homer to post-Augustan Rome, focusing on a broad swath of writers. "The ancient Greeks and Romans are our parents," he asserts, "and on the whole they have been good parents," inspiring future writersShakespeare, Milton, and, notably, the Romanticsto build on their rich foundation. That foundation is startlingly incomplete, represented by works that were repeatedly copied. All manuscripts from classical authors, notes the author, "are copies of copies of copies." We know the love poems of Sappho, Catullus, and Lucretius on the basis of a few manuscripts, while Cicero was survived by all or part of his 58 speeches and more than 900 letters), making him one of the best known personages of antiquity. Many, once admired, are now completely lost. Among the vast strides made by Greek writers, Jenkyns praises those of the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.E. for discovering differences: "fact was different from fiction, history from myth, natural science from philosophy" and verse from prose. He praises Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, whose masterful tragedies emerged from Athens "within a period of less than a century." But all writers do not merit his acclaim. Ovid's Metamorphoses, he writes, "can be overrated.His passages of natural description are rather unimaginative." Virgil seems to the author a greater poet. In later fifth-century Greece, Jenkyns notes the disjunction between repetitive forms of visual art (sculpture and architecture) and "daring and innovative, sometimes wild or experimental" literary forms. In the fourth century, with the advent of Plato, "a literary artist of a high order," and Aristotle, philosophy "got off to a dazzling start." Jenkyns' enthusiasm and erudition infuse a shrewd, illuminating narrative. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
