Lorna Hardwick

Reception as Simile: The Poetics of Reversal in Homer and Derek Walcott

Formal, discursive and contextuals elements all play a part in the reception of ancient texts in modern poetry and drama. This article examines the simile as a formal technique which also generates and transmits intertextual relationships. It is argued that the simile also provides a model which illuminates the nexus between Walcott’s technique and the ways in which audiences read and experience his work. The first section identifies ways in which the Homeric simile operates structurally within the epics and suggests that it acts as an agent of perspective transformation, changing the audience’s perception both of the internal dynamics of the poem and of how the audience itself relates to the work. The second part of the paper explores this approach in relation to Walcott’sOmeros, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Philoctetes/Philoctete and the anonymous narrator of the poem. The third section examines a broader application of the simile model in relation to performance of a modern work closely linked with a single ancient text, Walcott’sStage Version of the Odyssey.

Colloquium: Digital Technologies--Help or Hindrance for the Humanities?.

This article offers reflections arising from a recent colloquium at the Open University on the implications of the development of digital humanities for research in arts disciplines, and also for their interactions with computing and technology. Particular issues explored include the ways in which the digital turn in humanities research is also a spatial/visual one; the tension between analysis based on the extensive ‘hard’ data generated by digital methodologies and the more subtle evaluations of traditional humanities research; the advantages and disadvantages of online resources that distance the researcher from the actual archive, book, artefact or archaeological site under investigation; and the unrealized potential for applying to the humanities software tools designed for science and technology. Constructive responses to such challenges and opportunities require the full rigour of the critical thinking that is the essence of arts and humanities research.This article offers reflections arising from a recent colloquium at the Open University on the implications of the development of digital humanities for research in arts disciplines, and also for their interactions with computing and technology. Particular issues explored include the ways in which the digital turn in humanities research is also a spatial/visual one; the tension between analysis based on the extensive ‘hard’ data generated by digital methodologies and the more subtle evaluations of traditional humanities research; the advantages and disadvantages of online resources that distance the researcher from the actual archive, book, artefact or archaeological site under investigation; and the unrealized potential for applying to the humanities software tools designed for science and technology. Constructive responses to such challenges and opportunities require the full rigour of the critical thinking that is the essence of arts and humanities research.

Translating Greek Tragedy to the Modern Stage

touching on these few examples from Brecht and his sources helps to spotlight the critical value of translating keywords with attention to their neighbors in the discursive and ideological environment they inhabit and in turn reshape, and thus helps to stress the importance of delicate probing into the meaning and function of drama in the world even in the darkest of times. the careful scrutiny required to parse these smallest elements of meaning recalls Brecht’s insistence, in the play of theory and practice called Messingkauf, on both the delicacy and urgency of the task: “the world may well be out of joint and require forceful movements to be straightened out. But among the instruments available, it could be that the one that will serve is slight and fragile and requires delicate handling.”9

Electrifying the Canon: The Impact of Computing on Classical Studies

The article offers a case study of the relationshipbetween current developments in Classical Studies andthe impact of computing and IT. The first sectionsummarises the main features of the Classical Studiesenvironment, especially the deep seated changes whichhave been taking place. These changes are then relatedto specific initiatives in Research, Teaching andLearning. The discussion is framed by a statement ofmicro-criteria for the evaluation of new developmentsand by reference to the macro-climate of debate aboutthe nature of cyberspace, especially the dichotomybetween conceptions of post-modern diversity and ofEnlightenment images of rational structures. It issuggested that these debates mirror those with whichthe discipline itself engages.

Index of Modern Authors

Portrayals of Antigone in Portugal offers an analysis of nine 20th and 21st century Portuguese literary and cinematic versions of this Theban myth.

Portrayals of Antigone in Portugal

Portrayals of Antigone in Portugal offers an analysis of nine 20th and 21st century Portuguese literary and cinematic versions of this Theban myth.

Critical Humanism in Action

This chapter situates a Greek play from the fifth century BCE within an ongoing debate about the changing relationship between classical texts and modern critical approaches. It is argued that post-colonial readings of the text have given it a new role in the construction of dialogues which cross differences of time, place, language and culture. Understanding of the play’s part in the development of orientalism has in turn led to critical analysis of the dialogues embedded in the text, text which was itself a response to a historical process. Modern readers and audiences may therefore develop critical readings that identify commonalities as well as differences, both across ancient cultures and between ancient and modern. This process requires engagement with formal, poetic and ideological issues, and is aided by modern versions and performances and by technological opportunities in education. Thus Aeschylus’ play becomes an agent of critical enquiry in the late modern age, as it was in the fifth century.