Michael Winterbottom

Donald Andrew Russell

European literary criticism was pioneered in the ancient world, and this edition provides the principal Greek and Latin texts in translation, giving the reader a fair and intelligible view of ancient literary criticism and its development. Each passage is supplemented by a brief contextual introduction and a lucid general introduction provides an overview of classical thought on tragedy, comedy, poetry, and epic, as well as of the ideas of mimesis, the moral effect of poetry, emotion, and rhetoric.

Classical Literary Criticism

A wide-ranging and readable volume, this anthology includes over fifty short extracts from all the major Greek prose writers from the fifth century B.C. through to the fourth century A.D. It encompasses works by Herodotus, Thucydides, and other historians; orators such as Lysias and Isocrates; philosophers such as Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle; and writers from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. An essential guide for both scholars and students of Greek literary appreciation and composition, the volume presents a broad range of stylistic and syntactical techniques with accompanying notes, full references to grammars, and useful general introductions to each text.

An Anthology of Greek Prose

This anthology fills a gap which has been widely felt. It gives students - at sixth-form, undergraduate or junior graduate level - the opportunity of sampling a very wide variety of Latin prose texts, chosen to illustrate both development and generic differences. Each of the 96 passages isaccompanied by a short introduction, and there are brief notes explaining difficult words and drawing attention to linguistic and stylistic points occurring in the extracts. The extracts range from the second century BC to the fifth century AD: Cato the Censor, C. Gracchus, and the annalists; Cicero(oratory, letters, philosophical treatises); the historians (Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus); non-historical prose (Seneca, Vitruvius, Pliny, Apuleius, Tertullian); and finally some early Patristic texts and extracts from the Vulgate.

An Anthology of Latin Prose

Plutarch

Plutarch's dialogue "On the daimonion of Socrates" is a unique combination of exciting historical romance and serious philosophical and religious discussion. The volume offers a range of essays on themes providing further insights into this masterly literary piece: on the historical, religious and philosophical background and on thematic connections with other works by Plutarch. --Book Jacket.

Donald Andrew Russell

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