Group A: Greek and Latin Literature

Paper A1: Homer, Odyssey and Virgil, Aeneid

Course Directors: Dr R Laemmle and Dr M Ward (Odyssey) and Dr E Giusti (Aeneid)

Aims and objectives

1. To study in great depth in the original language one or both of what are among the greatest literary artefacts of antiquity.
2. To display the full range of modern critical approaches to these poems.
3. To understand the relationship between these texts and their historical contexts.

Please note that candidates for this paper may choose to study EITHER the Odyssey OR the Aeneid OR both.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2026–27

Course descriptions

The Odyssey is one of the major texts of world literature, of incalculable cultural significance in antiquity and beyond, and a hugely enjoyable work of great literary sophistication. After an introduction to the poem’s major themes, the lectures will first proceed sequentially through the text, pulling out and highlighting the themes, techniques and ruses of this ingenious poem; they will then turn to a discussion of broader topics, including gods, geography, gender, class, narrative, similes, language, song, performance, neoanalysis and oralism, and much besides.

Please read as much of the text as possible in Greek beforehand and bring a Greek text to each lecture.

Recommended editions:

Allen, T.W. (2nd edn, 1917) Homeri Opera Tom. III and IV (Oxford) [from which examination passages will be set]

van Thiel, H. (1991) Homeri Odyssea (Hildesheim, Zürich, and New York)

Other editions:

West, M.L. (2017) Homerus Odyssea (Berlin/Boston)

The Aeneid is one of the giants of the western literary canon. Myth and history, love and war, triumph and tragedy – there are good reasons why Virgil’s late masterpiece became an instant cultural classic, and why it continues to fascinate readers of all hues. This course is an opportunity to study that poem in the original and in depth. Lectures will combine sequential reading with thematic approaches, situating the poem within (inter al.) the literary tradition, Virgil’s oeuvre and the Augustan ‘cultural revolution’, and charting a route through the lively critical debate that has attended it for two millennia and more. The accompanying classes (with audience participation) will feature discussion of passages and debate over modern interpretative approaches.

Please read as much as possible of the Aeneid in Latin beforehand, preferably using Mynors's Oxford Classical Text (1969) [this is the prescribed edition, from which examination passage will be set]; it will also be well worth rereading the Odyssey and Iliad in English. The two-volume commentary on the whole poem by Williams (London 1972, repr. Bristol 1981) is a useful aid to translation, but dated in its critical approach. Among commentaries on single books, Hardie on Book 9 (Cambridge 1994), McGill on Book 11 (Cambridge 2020) and Tarrant on Book 12 (Cambridge 2012) best combine readability with literary sophistication. For critical bearings start with Hardie’s Virgil (Greece & Rome New Surveys, 1998) and the Cambridge Companion to Virgil (ed. Martindale, 1997), followed by Oxford Readings in Virgil’s Aeneid (ed. Harrison, 1990) and the Blackwell Companion to Vergil’s Aeneid and its tradition (ed. Farrell/Putnam, 2010).

Paper A2: Greek Poetry of the Roman Empire

Course Director: Prof. T Whitmarsh

Aims and objectives

1. To explore the range and variety of poetic texts composed in Greek in the Roman Empire through a representative sample.
2. To understand the cultural context within which poetry was produced and consumed.
3. To understand how the changing political and religious climate of the Roman Empire was reflected and processed in Greek poetry.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2026–27

The paper will be divided into two sections. Section A will contain passages from the set texts, to each of which will be attached a question regarding the passage and/or the work from which it is taken. Section B will contain essay questions covering the full range of the set texts and the subjects lectured on. Candidates will be required to answer three questions, at least one from each section.

In 2027-28 the scope and structure of the examination paper will remain unchanged.

Course description 

This paper surveys the Greek poetry of the Roman Empire, from the second through to the fifth centuries CE, covering lyric poetry, epigram, fable, didactic poetry, mythological epic and Christian poetry. This is an area of Greek literature that is seeing some of the most exciting work in contemporary scholarship, yet there are few opportunities for students to explore it at undergraduate level. This course will set the poetry against a background of cultural, political and religious change; it will introduce them to poems in a variety of metres, and on a range of topics; it will explore the reasons for crucial changes over time in metrical practice and pronunciation, and in the social functions of poetry; it will also cover the relationship between late poetics and oracular poetry and inscribed verse. Most of all, however, it will explore some extraordinarily rich, influential and eye-opening material, with emphasis laid upon poetic technique, intertextuality, sophisticated play, eroticism and political and religious commitment.

Recommended reading:

Accorinti, D. ed. 2016. Brill’s Companion to Nonnus of Panopolis. Leiden.

Bowie, E. L. 1990. ‘Greek Poetry in the Antonine Age’. In Russell, D. ed. Antonine Literature. Oxford: 53–90.

Carvounis, K. and Hunter, R. eds. 2008. Signs of Life? Studies in Later Greek Poetry = Ramus 37.1–2.

Goldhill, S. 2020. Preposterous Poetics: The Politics and Aesthetics of Form in Late Antiquity. Cambridge.

Greensmith, E. 2020. The Resurrection of Homer in Imperial Greek Epic: Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Posthomerica and the Poetics of Impersonation. Cambridge.

Kneebone, E. 2020. Oppian’s Halieutica: Charting a Didactic Epic. Cambridge.

Miguélez Cavero, L. 2007. Poems in Context: Greek Poetry in the Egyptian Thebaid 200-600 AD. Berlin and Boston.

Shorrock, R. 2011. The Myth of Paganism: Nonnus, Dionysus and the World of Late Antiquity. London.

Whitmarsh, T. 2013. Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism. Berkeley. (chs. 9–12)

List of texts:

Babrius, prologues 1–2 and Mythiambs 75, 103, 108 (Mythiambs in in Hopkinson 1994; prologues in Loeb)

Anacreontea 1–6 (in Hopkinson 1994)

Mesomedes, Ecphrasis of a sponge (in Hopkinson 1994)

Selected Epigrams from the ‘Cycle of Agathias’ (in Hopkinson 1994)

Oppian, Halieutica 1.338–59, 1.446–508, 2.389–418, 3.482–527, 5.612–74 (all in Hopkinson 1994)

Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 13–14

Triphiodorus, The Sack of Troy

Nonnus, Dionysiaca Books 5, 11–12, 15–16

Musaeus, Hero and Leander (in Hopkinson 1994)

Recommended editions (from which passages set in examinations will be taken):

Hopkinson, N. 1994. Greek Poetry of the Imperial Period: An Anthology. Cambridge

Hopkinson, N. 2018. Quintus Smyrnaeus, Posthomerica. Loeb. Cambridge, MA. (Available online)

Miguélez Cavero, L. 2013. Triphiodorus: The Sack of Troy. A General Study and a Commentary. Berlin. (Available online)

Perry, B.E. 1965. Babrius and Phaedrus. Loeb. Cambridge, MA. (Available online)

Rouse, W.H.D. 1940. Nonnos, Dionysiaca. With an English Translation by W.H.D. Rouse, Mythological Introduction and Notes by H.J. Rose and Notes on Text Criticism by L.R. Lind, Vol. 1 (Books 1–16). Loeb. Cambridge, MA. (Available online)

Recommended commentaries:

Renker, S. 2020. A Commentary on Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 13. Bamberg. https://fis.uni-bamberg.de/bitstream/uniba/47837/4/fisba47837k.pdf

Carvounis, K. 2019. A Commentary on Quintus of Smyrna, Posthomerica 14. Oxford.

Hopkinson, N. 1994. Greek Poetry of the Imperial Period: An Anthology. Cambridge.

Miguélez Cavero, L. 2013. Triphiodorus: The Sack of Troy. A General Study and a Commentary. Berlin. (Available online)

Montiglio, S. 2020. Musaeus’ Hero and Leander: Introduction, Greek Text, Translation and Commentary. London. (Available online)

Paper A3: Ovid's Metamorphoses and the History of its Reception

Course Director: Prof. I Gildenhard

Aims and objectives

1. To read in depth, Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the original Latin as well as various literary translations.
2. To explore the themes and artistry of this ‘anthropological epic’, which explores what human beings are capable of, for better and worse, in highly sophisticated verse, both with reference to its context of creation and its history of reception.
3. To develop a (selective) understanding of critical engagements with and creative responses to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, from antiquity to the present, both in literature and the visual arts.
4. To gain a critical appreciation of ‘literary translation’ as an influential medium of classical reception, from the Renaissance to the present.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2026–27

The paper will be divided into three sections. 

Section A: Critical discussion of a translation against the original Latin, with guiding question. The passages chosen may come from any book of the poem; translations will come from a specified set. [Choice of 3 exercises]

Section B: Practical Criticism of a passage in the original Latin; passages will be chosen from the odd books of the Metamorphoses (1, 3, 5, etc.). [Choice of 3 passages]

Section C: Essay Questions with a reception angle. Questions may invite discussion of specific texts and/ or images. [Choice of 6 questions]

Candidates must answer three questions, one from each section.

In 2027-28 the scope and structure of the examination paper will remain unchanged.

Course description

Ovid’s Metamorphoses codifies, in a Roman key, the Greek way of making sense of the world: myth. It is one of the most influential texts of the classical tradition and world literature. While known as the ‘Bible of Artists and Painters’, the poem offers a decidedly unorthodox vision of the world and of humanity: it features anthropomorphic divinities on the prowl for sex, depicts a broad panorama of erotic desires (from the self-love of Narcissus to Pygmalion’s agalmatophilia), foregrounds gender differences as constitutive of the human condition, celebrates fluid corporeality and chaotic flux, and explores, often with disconcerting wit, the discontents of civilization, such as abuse of power, (sexual) violence, or revenge ethics. The 20 lectures will analyse the themes and the artistry of the Metamorphoses and explore, through selective case studies, the creative dialogue of later authors, artists, and translators with Ovid’s poem, from antiquity till the present day. Of the four classes, two will be devoted to the critical analysis of literary translations, two to themes in visual reception.

Content note: Ovid’s Metamorphoses contains graphic descriptions of battlefield violence, body horror (including mutilation), gender fluidity, and rape.

List of text(s):

Ovid, Metamorphoses.

Arthur Golding (1536–1606) (trans.), Ovid’s Metamorphoses; edited with an introduction and notes by Madeleine Forey, London (Penguin) 2002.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in fifteen books, translated by Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other eminent hands (1727) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Metamorphoses_(tr._Garth,_Dryden,_et_al.)

A. D. Melville (trans.) (1986), Ovid: Metamorphoses, with an introduction and notes by E. J. Kenney, Oxford (World’s Classics).

Stephanie McCarter (trans.) (2023), Metamorphoses by Ovid, translated with an introduction, New York (Penguin).

Introductory readings:

For a first orientation on Ovid and the Metamorphoses, Philip Hardie (ed.) (2002), The Cambridge Companion to Ovid, Cambridge, is a good starting point. For a sense of the rich history of reception, see the edited collections by John F. Miller and Carole E. Newlands (eds) (2014), A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid, Newark, and by Karl A. E. Enenkel and Jan L. de Jong (eds) (2021), Re-inventing Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Pictorial and Literary Transformations in Various Media, 1400-1800, Leiden. For literary translations, watch the public lecture by Stephanie McCarter (author of a recent feminist translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, available via iDiscover) on YouTube: ‘Translating Ovid’s Metamorphoses Now’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJmjfyo_RcM

Recommended editions:

Editions: the prescribed edition of the Latin text (from which examination passages will be set) is Ovid’s Metamorphoses, translated by Frank Justus Miller and revised by G. P. Goold, in the Loeb Classical Library. Students are encouraged to read the Latin in the critical edition of Richard Tarrant (Oxford Classical Texts 2004) or William Anderson (Teubner 1977).

Commentaries: first port of call is now the new commentary on the entire poem under the general editorship of Alessandro Barchiesi, A Commentary on Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Cambridge 2024 (cued to Tarrant’s OCT).

Paper A4: Greek and Latin Textual Criticism and Transmission of Texts

Course Director: Prof. C Whitton and Dr M Ward

Aims and objectives

An introduction to the study of why the modern world is still able to read texts from classical antiquity. The aims of the course are:

1. To introduce the processes by which classical literature has been transmitted from antiquity to the present day.
2. To introduce the principles and practice of textual criticism through detailed study of particular texts.
3. To introduce the principles and practice of palaeography through study of selected Greek and Latin manuscripts.

Scope and structure of the examination paper 2026-27

The paper will consist of four questions, all of which must be answered. Unmarked copies of Greek and Latin dictionaries will be provided.

1. Two passages from the prescribed Greek text (with some updating of orthography and punctuation) will be set as they are found in a manuscript together with a critical apparatus. Candidates will be asked to choose one and explain which reading they would adopt from the readings offered in the apparatus (or any others of which they are aware). [20 marks]
2. Two passages from the prescribed Latin text (with some updating of orthography and punctuation) will be set as they are found in a manuscript together with a critical apparatus. Candidates will be asked to choose one and explain which reading they would adopt from the readings offered in the apparatus (or any others of which they are aware). [20 marks]
3. Four passages, two Greek and two Latin, will be set as they are found in a manuscript, or group of manuscripts (with some updating of orthography and punctuation), together with a critical apparatus. Candidates should explain how they would establish the text of any two. These passages may test candidates’ ability to choose between variants when there is a stemma; between variants when there is no stemma; between readings offered by the direct and indirect tradition of authors; when to adopt a conjecture in preference to a manuscript treading. The examiners may provide glosses for unfamiliar words. These topics will be covered briefly in lectures and should be explored further in supervisions. [40 marks, 20 for each question]
4. Candidates should transcribe both a photograph of a Greek manuscript and a photograph of a Latin manuscript. [20 marks] [Please note that this question differs from that in past papers up to 2024.]

Course descriptions

Most of the lectures will take the form of classes, with student participation encouraged. They will show that it is surprisingly easy to read Latin manuscripts (especially those of Catullus), and that the constitution of Catullus' text is surprisingly uncertain. Discussion of the textual problems of these famous poems will enable renewed appreciation of their wit: the effect will be not unlike seeing a famous painting that has just been cleaned. Postgraduate students, as well as anyone interested in the history of texts, are welcome to attend the course.

Prescribed poems: Catullus 1–13, 17, 31, 51, 62, 68

Introductory reading: L.D. Reynolds & N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars (4th edn, 2013), especially Chapters 1, 4, 6; R.J. Tarrant, Texts, editors, and readers (CUP, 2016), W. de Melo & S. Scullion, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Latin Textual Criticism (2026), G.P. Goold, Phoenix 12 (1958) 93-116. Text of Catullus: please try to use D.F.S. Thomson (Toronto 1997), now in paperback; Mynors’ (OCT 1958 and often reprinted) is not absolutely unacceptable but much less useful for our purposes.

Recoomended editions/commentaries of texts: D.F.S. Thomson, Catullus (edn 2), Toronto, 1997.

The lectures, which will be run as seminars, will focus principally on the history of the transmission of Sophocles in antiquity and the Middle Ages, on the importance of textual questions for the interpretation of the play, how errors arise in the course of transmission, and learning to read manuscripts. After two lectures on the history of transmission, we move on to practical classes on palaeography before making our way through the set text and discussing how it should be constituted.

Postgraduate students, as well as all undergraduates, are most welcome.

Introductory reading:

P.J. Finglass, ‘The Textual Transmission of Sophocles’ Dramas’, in K. Ormand (ed.), A Companion to Sophocles, Malden, MA, 2012: 9–24.

W. de Melo and S. Scullion, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Latin Textual Criticism, Oxford 2026.

L.D. Reynolds and N.G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars, 4th ed., Oxford 2013.

E.M. Thompson, An Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography, Oxford 1912.

M.L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique, Stuttgart 1973.

Recommended editions/commentaries of texts:

R.D. Dawe, Oedipus Rex. Cambridge Greek and Latin classics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 (2nd revised edition); the Oxford Classical Text edition of H. Lloyd-Jones and N.G. Wilson (1990; corr. ed. 1992); P.J. Finglass’ commentary in the Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentaries series (2018).

A detailed survey of all the main Greek and Latin metres. After the principles of prosody and scansion have been set out, these metres will be examined roughly in ascending order of difficulty or unfamiliarity. Lecture 1 will focus on the basic principles; Lecture 2 on hexameters and pentameters; Lecture 3 on iambics; Lecture 4 on lyric / strophic metres.

Students may find it useful to read the following introduction: https://antigonejournal.com/2021/05/long-short-latin-poetry/; M.L. West, Introduction to Greek Metre (Oxford, 1987) is a useful reference work.