Classics
Getting over a breakup? Critics pick music, books, games and more to help
Heartbreak is the ailment, could culture be the cure? Our critics’ suggestions to help ease your pain – or channel your angst
Jenessa Williams, Justine Jordan, Keza MacDonald, Peter Bradshaw and Jonathan Jones
11, Oct, 2021 @9:00 AM
Mary Beard: ‘Virgil was a radical rap artist of the first century BC’
The classics professor and author on being inspired by Mary Douglas and terrified by Beatrix Potter
Mary Beard
08, Oct, 2021 @9:00 AM
Age of Antigone: Sophocles’s arresting tale of the debt we owe the dead
With three new versions on stage this month, the ancient Greek classic – and its reflections on authority and devotion – remains as compelling as ever
Michael Billington
04, Oct, 2021 @8:28 AM
The Guardian view on a hidden history of poetry: it depends where you look | Editorial
Editorial: An ancient Greek graffito points to an overlooked culture of popular verse
Editorial
12, Sep, 2021 @4:57 PM
‘I don’t care’: text shows modern poetry began much earlier than believed
Academic finds that lines widely reproduced in the eastern Roman empire are ‘stressed’ in a way that laid the foundations for what we recognise as poetry
Alison Flood
08, Sep, 2021 @9:00 AM
Madeline Miller on The Song of Achilles: ‘It helped people come out to their parents’
The American novelist describes how she overcame her fears of a classical backlash to write a gay love story about Achilles and Patroclus
Madeline Miller
27, Aug, 2021 @11:00 AM
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker review – a Troy story for the sisterhood
Moving from Homer to Virgil, Pat Barker’s second feminist reboot of the classics is a stirring adventure set amid a misogynist dystopia
Anthony Cummins
22, Aug, 2021 @8:00 AM
The Women of Troy by Pat Barker review – bleak and impressive
In the sequel to her Iliad retelling The Silence of the Girls, told from the perspective of captured queen Briseis, Barker moves on from war to its aftermath
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
20, Aug, 2021 @6:30 AM
‘The best summer of my life’ – Kae Tempest takes Sophocles on a gender odyssey
The writer has turned a Greek tragedy about a marooned soldier into an all-women play for the Covid era. They reveal how its creation mirrored their own journey
Kate Wyver
05, Aug, 2021 @5:00 AM
Top 10 books about Sicily | Jamie Mackay
Far from the outdated stereotype of mafia domination, these works reveal an island of great variety and rich culture
Jamie Mackay
21, Jul, 2021 @1:29 PM
Love in the Lockdown review – a virtual romance drawn with emotional subtlety
This moreish serial drama finds new terrain with excellent performances from Rachael Stirling and Alec Newman
Arifa Akbar
28, Apr, 2021 @7:00 PM
Chinese Don Quixote is translated into Spanish after 100 years
Lin Shu’s forgotten 1922 text, The Story of the Enchanted Knight – with a less deluded Don Quixote – in edition for China and Spain
Sam Jones in Madrid
23, Apr, 2021 @4:00 AM
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