American Gods imagines a US where ancient gods exist at “right angles to reality”, asking why we have mythologies and why we need them.
Articles on Guide to the Classics
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The Melling sisters — like Alcott’s March sisters and Austen’s Bennetts — are four girls who become women during the course of Robin Klein’s trilogy of novels. The Sky in Silver Lace is the most bittersweet of the three.
Hunter S Thompson’s 1971 book is a torpedo ride through some of the strangest scenes in American fact, or fiction. It’s about greed, the souring of ‘60s idealism, the failings of journalism and much more.
The tale of a married woman who joins her lover in Paris, The Beauties and Furies is a modernist classic. Like Joyce’s Ulysses, the action is concentrated in one city, but dreams are nightmarish in this city of night, not light.
There are calls for Ovid’s Metamorphoses to be taught with a trigger warning. This 15-book epic is a rollercoaster of a read, with moments of both delicious joy and abject depravity. Like much great art, it was not created to please.
Family feuds, love affairs, empire writing back to the motherland - the medieval Icelandic saga have it all. Though less known than other classics of European literature they richly deserve a place among the best.
Herodotus’ Histories has it all: tales of war, eyewitness travel writing, notes on flora and fauna and accounts of fantastic creatures such as winged snakes. His stories share a common humanity that speaks to us, 2500 years on.
In the first of a new series of articles offering perspective on and analysis of classic works of literature we look at Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
Top contributors
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Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Sydney
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Professor in Philosophy, Australian Catholic University
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Emeritus Professor of Classics, La Trobe University
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Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of Sydney
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Lecturer in Literary Studies, Monash University
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Professor of Classics and Head of the Centre for Classical Studies, Australian National University
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Associate Professor, English and Creative Writing, Edith Cowan University
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Senior Lecturer in English, University of Sydney
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Lecturer, the School of Liberal Arts, The University of Wollongong, University of Wollongong
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Associate Professor in Chinese Studies, University of Sydney
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Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History, School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
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Associate Professor in Writing Studies, Discipline of English and Writing, University of Sydney
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Honorary Associate, Classics and Ancient History, La Trobe University
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Professor, School of Culture and Communication, The University of Melbourne
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Senior Lecturer in English, UNSW