Coming Soon: Theatre with a Classical Connection…

Lynn Fotheringham has been searching out theatrical productions with a classical connection over the next few months, in Nottingham, nearby cities and London. Sheffield, 13th February only, 13.00: Phaedra’s Love, semi-staged reading as part of a season of the complete works of Sarah Kane, whose reputation for writing plays with lots of on-stage violence suggests …

Classics and the First World War: ‘Stand in the trench, Achilles’

A hundred years since the summer of 1914: people’s minds are turning to the First World War. I thought it might be of interest to spend a little time here drawing attention to some of the various ways in which this war was experienced, described and commemorated in connection with Classics. This poem was composed …

Beginnings and Endings (77)

And another thing… A few weeks ago I posted about beginnings and endings in ancient literature, and called the post ‘Beginnings and endings (1)’. So I must go on… Sometimes the question ‘how can an ancient poem end?’ matters. One striking ending in a modern poem is Keats’ sonnet ‘On first looking into Chapman’s Homer’; …

Sarpedon: Looking at the Past

The pot in the picture is a big (about 45 cm tall) krater (mixing bowl for wine), manufactured in Athens in the late sixth century BC. We know the name of the potter (Euxitheos) and the painter (Euphronios), because both are named on the pot (one signature reads ‘Euxitheos made me’ and another ‘Euphronios painted …