Monday 6 February 2012

Between Ecstasy and Truth

A new book by Professor Stephen Halliwell, Professor of Greek and Head of the School of Classics, is published by Oxford University Press on 1 March 2012. Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homerto Longinus offers challenging readings of a series of major texts in ancient Greek poetic theory and criticism, a field in which Professor Halliwell has been an internationally leading figure for many years. Making numerous links between Greek ideas and the later history of poetics, the book examines the role of emotion, ethics, imagination, and knowledge in the various ways in which the Greeks understood the importance of poetry in their culture. Professor Halliwell's last two monographs, The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modern Problems (Princeton, 2002) and Greek Laughter: a Study of CulturalPsychology from Homer to Early Christianity (Cambridge, 2008), both won international prizes.