This book explores Toni Morrison's widespread engagement with ancient Greek and the Roman tradition. It examines the ways in which classical myth, literature, history, social practice, and religious ritual make their presence felt in all ten of Morrison's novels published to date. Combinin...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Bibliographische Detailangaben

1. Verfasser:	Roynon, Tessa
Format:	Elektronisch E-Book
Sprache:	English
Veröffentlicht:	Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2013.
Ausgabe:	First edition.
Schriftenreihe:	Classical presences.
Schlagworte:	Morrison, Toni > Themes, motives. Morrison, Toni > Criticism and interpretation. Morrison, Toni Classicism in literature. Classicisme dans la littérature. LITERARY CRITICISM > American > General. Classicism in literature Themes, motives Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Online-Zugang:	Volltext
Zusammenfassung:	This book explores Toni Morrison's widespread engagement with ancient Greek and the Roman tradition. It examines the ways in which classical myth, literature, history, social practice, and religious ritual make their presence felt in all ten of Morrison's novels published to date. Combining close readings with theoretical discussion, it argues that Morrison's classical allusiveness is characterized by a strategic ambivalence. It demonstrates that Morrison's classicism is fundamental to the transformative critique of American history and culture that her work effects: the novelist deploys the classical tradition to rewrite narratives about America's discovery and colonization, about the founding of the new nation, about slavery, the Civil War and Reconstruction, about black migration and urbanization, and about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement. 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', pure, and purifying force to be a fabrication of the Enlightenment. Exploring the ways Morrison's dialogue with Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Virgil, and Ovid relates to her simultaneous dialogue with a diverse range of American literary forebears such as Cotton Mather, Willa Cather, Pauline Hopkins, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William Faulkner, this book shows that Morrison's classicism enables her to fulfil her own imperative that 'the past has to be revised'.
Beschreibung:	1 online resource (ix, 220 pages)
Bibliographie:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN:	9780191501678 0191501670