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Classical Reception and Contemporary Women's Writing

Module description

From Madeline Miller to Tayari Jones, from Carol Ann Duffy to Toni Morrison, the world of women’s writing has recently been overwhelmed by reworkings of classical myth. This course will examine the issues that are contested within these reworkings – the reclaiming of women’s voices, interrogating the canon, discovering new angles within classical texts, and exploring the ways in which voices are suppressed and lost.

You do not need to have specialist background knowledge of classical literature to follow this course. Sufficient background and short readings will be provided.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Seminars will entail close engagement with both primary and secondary texts. By the end of the module you should have an excellent knowledge of the primary texts, and you will have developed the critical tools to analyse and evaluate the processes of reception and intertextuality, to understand the ways in which different waves of feminism have shaped our attitudes towards the past, to explore the ways in which classical texts can be appropriated in order to articulate strong emotions such as grief and anger.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Demonstrate an excellent understanding of the primary texts.
• 2. Demonstrate a discerning appreciation of the classical world and its reception in the present day.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 3. Show the ability to engage critically with different models of reception and intertextuality and to apply these to primary texts at an advanced level.
• 4. Construct an argument at an advanced level that engages effectively with both primary texts and that draws upon well-selected opinions from secondary material.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Adopt advanced critical approaches to support the chosen reading of the primary text.
• 6. Engage in independent research and to articulate clearly a chosen position.

Syllabus plan

The module includes 22 hours of seminars delivered in 11 weeks of term. Set texts might include Josephine Balmer – Letting Go, Anne Carson – Nox,  Hélène Cixous – Mother Homer is dead and Tayari Jones – An American Marriage. There will be a mix on in-class discussion and student-led presentations.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Balmer, Josephine Piecing Together the Fragments – Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry (Oxford: OUP, 2013).
• Bär Silvio and Hauser Emily (eds) Reading Poetry, Writing Genre English Poetry and Literary Criticism in Dialogue with Classical Scholarship (London: Bloomsbury, 2018)
• Cox, Fiona and Theodorakopoulos, Elena (eds) Special Issue on Women’s Writing and the Classics. Classical Receptions Journal, ‘Translation, Transgression and Transformation: Contemporary Women Authors and the Classics’ Vol 4. No 2. 2012.
• Cox, Fiona and Theodorakopoulos, Elena (eds) Homer’s Daughters – Women’s Responses to Homer in the Twentieth Century and Beyond (Oxford: OUP, 2019)
• Dougherty, Carol Travel and Home in Homer’s Odyssey and Contemporary Literature (Oxford: OUP, 2019)
• Fisher, Kate and Langlands, Rebecca (eds) Sex, Knowledge and Receptions of the Past (Oxford: OUP, 2015)
• Hall, Edith The Return of Ulysses – A Cultural History of Homer’s Odyssey (London: I B Tauris, 2012)
• Hardwick Lorna and Harrison Stephen (eds), Classics in the Modern World – A Democratic Turn? (Oxford: OUP, 2013)
• Hardwick Lorna and Stray Christopher A Companion to Classical Receptions (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2011)
• Jansen, Laura Anne Carson – Antiquity (London: Bloomsbury, 2021)

Key words search

Classics; classical reception; women’s writing; intertextuality.