The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature [Paperback]

Gilbert Highet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 1985 | ISBN-10: 0195002067 | ISBN-13: 978-0195002065

This landmark book explores the ways in which the Greco-Roman tradition has shaped modern European and American literature.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Highet has assembled a vast quantity of material concerning the manifold aspects of his subject, filled in gaps where no adequate work has been done, and presented a story characterized by lucidity, charm, and scholarly good sense."--Classical Philology

"Solidly grounded and solidly built...[Highet] deals with every period, every movement, every individual, and every separate work as an interesting special case for which he tries to find the special explanation."--The New Yorker

Product Details

• Paperback: 764 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (November 21, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195002067
• ISBN-13: 978-0195002065
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #433,489 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb guide to European literature, among other things, May 12, 2002

By 

PseudoDionysius (Bloomington, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Paperback)

In writing reviews I adhere to the policy that five stars should be given only to books that profoundly alter your perspective. In that sense, this book deserves to be spangled liberally with a good sized constellation.

Ever wanted an approachable and informative guide to Western Literature? Have you ever tackled some purported classic that left you wondering why those damn nymphs and fauns keep proliferating? Your quest has ended: this book is the Baedeker of Western European Literature that all you literature addicts have been looking for.

First of all, the author is dazzlingly erudite; he is apparently at home in Greek, Latin, English, French, Spanish, German, and Italian at least. Its primary purpose is to show the hidden scaffolding of Greco-Roman classics in Western literature, age by country, by selecting a choice group of writers with his personal preferences attached. The result is remarkably readable, never ostentatious, and his thesis rarely imposes strain on belief because the proof is always at hand. Thus the reader learns the overtones of classics in Shakespeare, or is made to see the hidden Doric column in Byron's passions fairly concretely.

But in my opinion, this book is truly excellent (1) for the list of influential writers in all ages that he had himself hand selected (I've never heard of Abraham a Santa Clara and now I'm itching for a translation), and most importantly, (2) because it gives the necessary cultural backdrop that anchors a given author to an era with all its advantages and limitations. For example, the book gives a reason why the Augustan poets (Dryden, Pope and friends) were driven to mincing affectations (partly a reaction to the Renaissance, partly a particularly Baroque censorship of vulgar words that comes from a misunderstanding of the classics. Highet provides some choice sample of Juvenal's trenchant and vulgar satires as a counterexample).

Of course, all books must have some faults. First, this book is very anglophillic; when works of two nations are compared, the British are crowned with the laurel with somewhat suspicious frequency. Whether this represents the truth is far beyond my capacity, only I submit that if I were a Frenchman, I would contest some of the outcomes. Second, his preference is certainly open to criticism. I may be alone in this, but I never found a single page of Gibbon's magnum opus soporific. I don't agree with his encomiastic treatment of Byron, either. I thought Coleridge was ushered off the stage too speedily. And sometimes you do get the feeling that an author with extensive classical training is definitely favored in the eye of a very classicist author.

The nettlesome issue of a hierarchy in writers is bound to cause some clashes with readers' opinions. But no matter: I am very certain that this book will still provide an addictively informative read to anyone with an interest in reading a sweeping survey of European literature. This book is a MUST READ for amateur/professional literati, world literature bookworms (me), and ...

... especially the classicists. Because the book's final and most salutary influence is that it reintroduces the Greco-Roman classics to our age where the classics field is increasingly untilled. If the very fact that a millenium of writers have turned - whether coerced by social convention or not - continuously to the Greco-Roman classics does not convince us, after rading this book one can't help but wonder whether, beyond the frigid marmoreal busts that say nothing and the wild raging toga party orgies, the ancients really have something very urgent to say to the present, or that they say it better than any of us alive.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping, erudite and scholarly, September 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Paperback)

It is difficult to believe that one person can so eloquently present the influences of Greek and Roman literature on Western European literature with such care and enthusiasm, given that the scope of the work covers almost 2,000 years. Gilbert Highet is a true scholar and this volume is an inspiration to any reader who wishes to understand what Greek and Roman literature has meant to civilization.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The perfect follow up to Jaeger's Paideia, May 5, 2005

By 

Christoph B. Gondek "Host, www.theinvisibleha... (Portland, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature (Paperback)

I had the good fortune to read The Classical Tradition right after finishing Werner Jaeger's "Paideia" and the two works make an incredibly compelling case for the importance of classical study. Highet does take you on a tour of Western Lit with Greek and Latin authors close by. I learned about The Battle of the Books, the baroque era's rather slavish following of Aristotle's theories and met a whole bunch of authors I had never known (I am also waiting for those Abraham a Santa Clara translations to see if he is as entertaining as Highet makes him out to be)

I've read a lot of Highet's books and can tell you there are no duds. I am reading Poets in a Landscape right now and it is hard to put down. Also, check out the surveys of Greek and Latin Literature written by his colleague at Columbia, Moses Hadas.