Abstract:
Classics in Post-Colonial Worlds examines the continuing impact of Greek and Roman drama, literature, and art on the cultures of societies that have emerged from colonial domination. It is well known that classical literature, ideas, and architecture was used to express colonial authority and in some cases dominated the education of the elite among both colonized and colonizers. But classical themes and motifs were also appropriated to challenge colonialism and, after independence, have continued to be an important and sometimes problematic aspect of the development of cultural identities and politics in post-colonial societies.
The essays in this book represent the latest research in the interaction between classical texts and post-colonial societies. They demonstrate how this engagement is a crucial aspect of creative practice in the work of poets and dramatists, such as Derek Walcott, Seamus Heaney, Athol Fugard, Femi Osofisan, and Christopher Okigbo, and has illuminated cultural politics in many parts of Africa, Europe, India, and the Caribbean. They also reveal how changes in perception of the ancient world, its written and material texts and ideologies, are created by transplanting these into other languages and cultural contexts. The diverse ways in which classical texts have migrated and been translated worldwide, and the variations in how they have been received and re-used also open up new questions about the nature and trajectories of cultural activity in post-colonial contexts, and thus contributing to wider debates about cultural change.