Tirso de Molina has been the subject of less than half as much scholarly research as either of his Golden Age counterparts, Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. Tirso's only mythological play, El Aquiles, remains one of the least studied of his plays, and when studied, is generally considered in isolation from the rest of his dramatic production. The Achillean Hero in the Plays of Tirso de Molina traces the development of the figure of the Achillean hero in three of Tirso's plays, El Aquiles, La vida y muerte de Herodes, and La venganza de Tamar, and in doing so connects the early mythological play to the dramatist's later works.

In 1991, Laura Slatkin published The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad, in which she argued that Homer knowingly situated the storyworld of the Iliad against the backdrop of an older world of mythos by which the events in the Iliad are explained and given traction. Slatkin’s focus was on Achilles’ mother, Thetis: an ostensibly marginal and powerless goddess, Thetis nevertheless drives the plot of the Iliad, being allusively credited with the power to uphold or challenge the rule of Zeus. Now, almost thirty years after Slatkin’s publication, this timely volume re-examines depictions and receptions of this ambiguous goddess, in works ranging from archaic Greek poetry to twenty-first century cinema. Twenty authors build upon Slatkin’s readings to explore Thetis and multiple roles she played in Western literature, art, material culture, religion, and myth. Ever the shapeshifter, Thetis has been and continues to be reconceptualised: supporter or opponent of Zeus’ regime, model bride or unwilling victim of Peleus’ rape, good mother or child-murderess, figure of comedy or monstrous witch. Hers is an enduring power of transformation, resonating within art and literature.

This is the first book to deal exclusively with ludic interactions with classical antiquity – an understudied research area within classical reception studies – that can shed light on current processes of construction and appropriation of the Greco-Roman world. Classical antiquity has, for many years, been sold as a product and consumed in a wide variety of forms of entertainment. As a result, games, playing and playful experiences are a privileged space for the reception of antiquity. Through the medium of games, players, performers and audiences are put into direct contact with the classical past, and encouraged to experience it in a participative, creative and subjective fashion. The chapters in this volume, written by scholars and practitioners, cover a variety of topics and cultural artefacts including toys, board games and video games, as well as immersive experiences such as museums, theme parks and toga parties. The contributors tackle contemporary ludic practices and several papers establish a dialogue between artists and scholars, contrasting and harmonising their different approaches to the role of playfulness. Other chapters explore the educational potential of these manifestations, or their mediating role in shaping our conceptions of ancient Greece and Rome. Altogether, this edited collection is the first to offer a comprehensive overview of the ways we can play with antiquity.

The Dark Side of Statius' Achilleid explores systematically and for the first time the darker aspects of Statius' Achilleid, bringing to light the poem's tragic and epic dimensions. By seeking to position at centre-stage these darker elements, the book offers several new readings of the Achilleid in relation to its literary inheritance, its gender dynamics, and its generic tensions. This volume delves beneath the surface of a story that ostensibly deals with a light subject matter—the cross-dressing of a young Achilles on Scyros—to offer an in-depth examination of the poem's relationship to its epic and tragic precursors, and to explore its more serious themes. It is shown to challenge traditional epic narratives, examine Achilles' complex familial relationships and his deviant and transgressive heroism, highlight the tragic character of Thetis, and provide glimpses of the horrors that the cataclysmic Trojan War will beget. By looking into Statius' wide-ranging dialogue with his literary predecessors, such as Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Seneca, as well as Statius' previous epic magnum opus, the Thebaid, the multidimensional characterisations of Achilles and other of the poem's key characters, such as Ulysses, Calchas, and Thetis are investigated. Far from simply representing a shameful but essentially humorous cross-dressing episode in Achilles' life that is destined to be forgotten, the Achilleid can be seen to challenge the very fabric of epic by probing the validity and authority of its literary tradition, as well as highlighting its highly innovative and experimental nature.

More panoramic in scope and more realistic in its details than Crane's Red Badge of Courage, this is one of the first and best novels ever written about the American Civil War Drawing on his own combat experience with the Union forces, John W. De Forest crafted a war novel like nothing before it in the annals of American literature. His first-hand knowledge of "the wilderness of death" made its way on to the pages of his riveting novel with devastating effect. Whether depicting the tedium before combat, the unspoken horror of battle, or the grisly butchery of the field hospital, De Forest broke new ground, anticipating the realistic war writings of Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, and Tim O'Brien. A commercial failure in its own day, De Forest's story was praised by Henry James and William Dean Howells, who, comparing it favorably to War and Peace, acclaimed the book "one of the best American novels ever written." For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.