Category Archives: Reception

The classical tradition, pop culture, &c.

Another “Bad Classics” Piece of Jewelry

It seems as though jew­elry design­ers like using ancient coinage as inspi­ra­tion for their pieces, but aren’t as con­cerned about the accu­racy of the descrip­tion on the web­sites that sell them.  In  Bad Jew­elry Latin (well, His­tory), I dis­cussed a … Con­tinue read­ing

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George Grote on myth and allegory

There’s a lot to be learned from texts that might seem out of date, and while it seems odd to say that to any­one inter­ested in ancient texts, it’s easy to for­get that the lat­est schol­ar­ship isn’t nec­es­sar­ily the most … Con­tinue read­ing

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Rhythmici vs. Metrici vs. Poetae

Schol­ars have a ten­dency to see them­selves in their work. This is why Hel­lenis­tic poets were once thought to be proto-Romantics, and later became proto-pomo. This explains the Pes­simists who argued, begin­ning in an age dom­i­nated by the fear of … Con­tinue read­ing

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A Reading from Homer

This is what I sus­pect many will pic­ture when they read the title above: That’s Alma-Tadema’s famous paint­ing, which hangs in the Philadel­phia Museum of Art. But an arti­cle in the Sacra­mento Press describes an event that con­jures images of the frame … Con­tinue read­ing

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Bad Roman Humor

So my friend, a poet (who’s not a clas­si­cist but who nearly was once upon a time in col­lege), picked up a trans­la­tion of Juve­nal and had a few ques­tions for me. We nat­u­rally made a few jokes about his … Con­tinue read­ing

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Michael Choniates as a scholar and poet

I’ve argued before that Michael Cho­ni­ates (arch­bishop of Athens at the time of the 4th Cru­sade) was a true scholar, and I’d like to point out some­thing I’ve just spot­ted in his famous poem lament­ing the state of the city … Con­tinue read­ing

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Dubiouser and dubiouser (+ a new comic)

In the news: The Boston Marathon gives a pro­fes­sor a chance to repeat an oft-repeated absur­dity: “As my old Latin pro­fes­sor used to say, ‘If it weren’t for Marathon, it’s highly likely we’d all be speak­ing Farsi,“‘ said Matthew Gon­za­les, … Con­tinue read­ing

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Happy 6th Birthday to the CAMPVS!

In honor of the 6th birth­day, of this, our hum­ble blog, I wanted to share with you some clips from NBC’s great com­edy 30 Rock, which have some great clas­sics con­tent. In the first, Alec Baldwin—faced with the prospect of … Con­tinue read­ing

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Mencken on poetry

I came across the fol­low­ing bits of inter­est from H.L. Mencken’s col­lec­tion of crit­i­cal essays, Prej­u­dices: First Series. I thought Eric might be inter­ested in his judg­ment of Edgar Lee Mas­ters, which includes ref­er­ences to ubi sunt poetry and the … Con­tinue read­ing

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Ovid and Housman

My Latin IV stu­dents are read­ing Ovid in trans­la­tion, and this week we’re cov­er­ing book 5, which is essen­tially a pas­tiche of the major gen­res of epic, mov­ing from a par­ody of Odysseus and the suit­ors, to Hesiod’s Heli­con, and … Con­tinue read­ing

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