Classics for All, Historically, with Professor Edith Hall

We are delighted to be joined by Professor Edith Hall who will discuss her recent book, A People's History of Classics, co-written with Henry Stead. Exploring the influence of the classical past on the lives of working-class people, Edith will challenge the prevailing assumption that working-class culture was a ‘Classics-Free Zone’ and outline some of struggles that non-elite Britons went through to access the ancient Greeks and Romans between the Bill of Rights in 1689 and the outbreak of World War II in 1939. With vivid examples of those who succeeded, Edith will demonstrate that classics, historically, was for all.
This was a Classics for All fundraising event, hosted on 12 May 2021.

[@tomfurniss7725]

I wonder why your book ends its survey in 1939. It would be interesting to know if working-class troops read the classics during the war. Your cut-off date also precludes attention to the impact of Penguin Classics (founded by E.V. Rieu in 1944), whose remit was to make good translations of the classics available in cheap paperbacks. Coming from a working-class family and having attended a secondary modern school in the late 1960s and early 1970s, my reading of Penguin Classics was the beginning of my self-education in classical literature. I eventually taught English at Strathclyde University and one of the Honours classes I devised and taught was Classical Literature in Translation. I have fond memories of the great enthusiasm and insight that the students brought to reading and discussing the set texts: Homer, The Iliad, tr. Robert Fitzgerald, ed. G. S. Kirk (Oxford, 2008), Homer, The Odyssey, tr. Robert Fagles, ed. Bernard Knox (Penguin, 1996),
Sophocles, Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra, ed. Edith Hall and tr. H.D.F. Kitto (Oxford University Press, 2008), Virgil, The Aeneid, tr. Robert Fagles (Penguin, 2006), Ovid, Metamorphoses, tr. David Raeburn (Penguin, 2004).

[@bugsby4663]

This is something I am passionate about. I am working-class and love the classical world. Unfortunately the OU was too expensive. I was doing a course in Greek and Latin but because I moved to France, they put my fees up, even though I am a British citizen and would be unable to attend tutorials and would have material delivered to an address in the UK. Edith Hall & Paul Cartledge are two of my favourite classicists and I watch many of their great lectures on You Tube.

[@paltieri11]

Excellent!

[@Redrios]

bump