Expurgating the Classics: Editing Out in Latin and Greek

236 Pages·2012·10.77 MB·English

by  Christopher Stray

EXPURGATING
THE CLASSICS
Editing Out in Greek and Latin
EXPURGATING
THE CLASSICS
Editing Out in Greek and Latin
In the first collection to be devoted
to this subject, a distinguished cast of
contributors explores expurgation in
both Greek and Latin authors in ancient
and modem times. The major focus is on
the period from the seventeenth to the
twentieth century, with chapters ranging
from early Greek lyric and Aristophanes
through Lucretius, Horace, Martial and
Catullus to the expurgation of schoolboy
texts, the Loeb Classical Library and
the Penguin Classics. The contributors
draw on evidence from the papers of
editors, and on material in publishing
archives. The introduction discusses the
different types of expurgation, and how
it differs from related phenomena such as
censorship.
Stephen Harrison is Professor of Latin
Literature at Oxford and Fellow and Tutor
in Classics at Corpus Christi College,
Oxford. He is the author of many books
and articles, including Vergil Aeneid 10
(1991), Homage to Horace (ed.) (1995),
Apuleius: a Latin Sophist (2000), Generic
Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (2007), and
Living Classics (ed.) (2009).
Christopher Stray is Honorary Research
Fellow, Department of History and
Classics, Swansea University, and
Senior Research Fellow, Institute of
Classics, University of London. He is a
leading expert on the history of classical
s,cholarship and the editor or co-editor
of several collected volumes including
Oxford Classics (2007), Remaking the Classics
(2007), A. E. Housman (2009) and Classical
Dictionaries (2010).
jacket illustrations: Front: Attic red-figure psykter by the vase
painter Douris, 500-470 BC, decorated with a scene of revelling
satyrs. British Museum Vase E76. This image is based on an
expurgated negative in wh.ich the phallus of the central satyr
was painted out.
Back: the same scene, unexpurgated.
www.bloomsburyacademic.com
.'.
Bristol Classical Press
EXPURGATING THE CLASSICS

EXPURGATING THE CLASSICS
Editing Out in Greek and Latin
Edited by
Stephen Harrison
and Christopher Stray
Bristol Classical Press
First published in 2012 by
Bristol Classical Press
an imprint of
Bloomsbury Academic
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square
London WC1B 3DP
Introduction and editorial arrangement© 2012
by Stephen Harrison and Christopher Stray
The contributors retain copyright in their individual chapters.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
ISBN 9781849668927
Typeset by Ray Davies
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the
MPG Books Group, Bodrnin, Cornwall
www.bloomsbury.com
Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction
Step hen Harrison and Christopher Stray 1
1. Unnatural selection: expurgation of Greek melic, elegiac and iambic
poetry
Ewen Bowie 9
2. 'Seeing the meat for what it is': Aristophanic expurgation and its
phallacies
Ian Ruffell 25
3. Headlam's Herodas: the art of suggestion
Daniel Orrells 53
4. Flowers in the wilderness: Greek epigram in the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries
Gideon Nisbet 73
5. Contempta relinquas: anxiety and expurgation in the publication of
Lucretius' De rerum natura
David Butterfield 95
6. Expurgating Horace, 1660-1900
Stephen Harrison 115
7. Modifying Martial in nineteenth-century Britain
T.]. Leary 127
8. Catullus and 'comment in English': the tradition of the expurgated
commentary before Fordyce
· Gail Trimble 143
9. 'From out the schoolboy's vision': expurgation and the young reader
]ames Morwood 163
10. For the gentleman and the scholar: sexual and scatological references
in the Loeb Classical Library
Philip Lawton 175
11. How to fillet a Penguin
Robert Crowe 197
Afterword
Deborah H. Roberts 213
Index 221
V