TONI MORRISON CLASSICAL TRADITION CLPR C

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-969868-4
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 234 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 431 g

In this volume, Roynon explores Toni Morrison's widespread engagement with ancient Greek and Roman tradition. Discussing all ten of her published novels to date, Roynon examines the ways in which classical myth, literature, history, social practice, and religious ritual make their presence felt in Morrison's writing. Combining original and detailed close readings with broader theoretical discussion, she argues that Morrison's classical allusiveness is characterized by a strategic ambivalence.

Adopting a thematic, rather than novel-by-novel approach, Roynon demonstrates that Morrison's classicism is fundamental to the transformative critique of American history and culture that her work effects. Building on recent developments in race theory, transnational studies, and Classical Reception studies, the volume positions Morrison within a genealogy of intellectuals who have challenged the purported conservative nature of Greek and Roman tradition, and who have revealed its construction as a 'white' or pure and purifying force to be a fabrication of the Enlightenment. Exploring the ways in which Morrison's dialogue with Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Virgil, and Ovid relates to her simultaneous dialogue with many other American literary forebears - from Cotton Mather to Willa Cather, or from Pauline Hopkins to F.Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner - Roynon shows that Morrison's classicism enables her to fulfil her own imperative that 'the past has to be revised'.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Roynon

Roynon, Tessa

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturgeschichte und Literaturkritik
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Klassische Literaturwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Geschichte der klassischen Antike

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Preface

- Introduction

- 1: Discovery, Conquest, and Settlement

- 2: The New England Colonies and the Founding of the New Nation

- 3: Slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction

- 4: In Search of Home: the 1920s -1950s

- 5: Fighting for Rights: from Emmett Till s Murder to the Ronald Reagan Years

- 6: America, Africa, and Classical Traditions

- Conclusion: Splitting Open the World

- Bibliography

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Tessa Roynon is a Research Fellow at St Peter's College, Oxford. Her research and publications to date have centred on the reception of the classical tradition in American and black diasporic literature, and on Toni Morrison's engagement with early modern English culture. Her publications include African Athena: New Agendas (OUP, 2011), co-edited with Daniel Orrells and Gurminder K. Bhambra. She serves on the advisory board of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition.