The Norton Book of Classical Literature

Literature & Fiction

Knox, Bernard

Ancient & Medieval Literature

W.W.Norton

In this widely praised book, an eminent classicist examines Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus in the context of fifth-century B.C. Athens. In attempting to discover what the play meant to Sophocles' contemporaries—and in particular in disentangling Sophocles' ideas from Freud's psychoanalytical interpretations—Bernard Knox casts fresh light on its timeless and universal nature. For this edition, Knox has provided a new preface and a list of suggested readings. "What a joy it is to welcome this book back in print. As perennial as Sophocles' great play itself, Knox's work has never gone out of date, and never will."—Robert Fagles Reviews of the earlier editions: "A superb analysis, demonstrating that when classical study is aware of Freud and the techniques of modern literary criticism, it can be as exciting nowadays as it must have been during the Renaissance."—New Yorker "A superb critical and textual investigation."—New York Times "One of the major contributions to Sophoclean and to Greek studies in recent years."—Virginia Quarterly Review "A magnificent contribution ... which is really required reading."—Cedric Whitman, American Journal of Philology "A brilliant piece of work combining the best of classical scholarship with the best of modern literary criticism."—John E. Rexine, Hellenic World

Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time

Dramas & Plays

Yale University Press

Linked by the events of Bernard Knox's remarkable life, the twenty-five chapters of "Essays Ancient and Modern" cover subjects ranging from Hesiod, Homer, and Thucydides to Auden, Forster, and the Spanish Civil War. With a masterful eye for the telling detail, Knox continually reminds us that we share the present with antiquity's living past. A soldier in Italy finds a battered book in the rubble of a bombed-out firehouse-- and opens it to read Virgil's denunciation of war. An illiterate Greek bard composes a garbled Homeric song to celebrate the recent heroism of local partisans. A traveler heading north from modern Athens must choose between the Sacred Way-- or the NATO Road. 
Whether the subject is the role of women in ancient Athens or the novelists of modern Italy, the wit and erudition of Bernard Knox never fail to instruct and delight. Now in paperback, "Essays Ancient and Modern" takes it place alongside the distinguished essays of Knox's "Word and Action", a book whose title brings together, in the words of Anthony Hecht, "the double strand of his admirable career".

Essays Ancient and Modern

Essays & Correspondence

Johns Hopkins University Press

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