Stand in the Trench, Achilles: Classical Receptions in British Poetry of the Great War (Classical Presences) - Hardcover

Vandiver, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199542740 ISBN 13: 9780199542741

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2010

Synopsis

Elizabeth Vandiver examines the ways in which British poets of the First World War used classical literature, culture, and history as a source of images, ideas, and even phrases for their own poetry. Vandiver argues that classics was a crucial source for writers from a wide variety of backgrounds, from working-class poets to those educated in public schools, and for a wide variety of political positions and viewpoints. Poets used references to classics both to support and to oppose the war from its beginning all the way to the Armistice and after. By exploring the importance of classics in the poetry of the First World War, Vandiver offers a new perspective on that poetry and on the history of classics in British culture.

About this title

Review:

Vandiver ranges from the history of classics teaching in schools at the end of the nineteenth century to detailed consideration of the history and usage of particular motifs suct famously reworked by Wilfred Owen. As well as public schools such as Eton and Marlborough, she scrutinizes the curricula of grammar schools and the ways in which classical texts were encountered both in the original and in translation. Hers is an inclusive study of poets and poems from across social classes and military ranks, devoting detailed attention to familiar figures such as Rudyard Kipling, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, and Isaac Rosenberg, as well as less well-known writers, such as J.L. Crommelin Brown and Joseph Streets. (Matthew Creasy, Years Work in English Studies)

The book is abrim with research ... it is enthrallingly written and on the sly it provides a fascinating socio-historical account of the making of the officer classes (Tim Kendall, War Poetry Blog)

The wealth of Vandiver's material is admirable. The study includes numerous relatively unknown poets and makes available hitherto unpublished material. (Claudia Olk, Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik)

About the Author:

Elizabeth Vandiver is Clement Biddle Penrose Associate Professor of Latin and Classics, Whitman College.

About this edition

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0199542740
• ISBN 13: 9780199542741
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480