In this volume, Roynon explores Toni Morrison's widespread engagement with ancient Greek and Roman tradition. Discussing all ten of her published novels to date, Roynon examines the ways in which classical myth, literature, history, social practice, and religious ritual make their presence felt in Morrison's writing. Combining original and detailed close readings with broader theoretical discussion, she argues that Morrison's classical allusiveness is characterized by a strategic ambivalence. Adopting a thematic, rather than novel-by-novel approach, Roynon demonstrates that Morrison's classicism is fundamental to the transformative critique of American history and culture that her work effects. Building on recent developments in race theory, transnational studies, and Classical Reception studies, the volume positions Morrison within a genealogy of intellectuals who have challenged the purported conservative nature of Greek and Roman tradition, and who have revealed its construction as a 'white' or pure and purifying force to be a fabrication of the Enlightenment. Exploring the ways in which Morrison's dialogue with Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, Virgil, and Ovid relates to her simultaneous dialogue with many other American literary forebears - from Cotton Mather to Willa Cather, or from Pauline Hopkins to F.Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner - Roynon shows that Morrison's classicism enables her to fulfil her own imperative that 'the past has to be revised'.

About the Author
Tessa Roynon is a Research Fellow at St Peter's College, Oxford. Her research and publications to date have centred on the reception of the classical tradition in American and black diasporic literature, and on Toni Morrison's engagement with early modern English culture. Her publications include African Athena: New Agendas (OUP, 2011), co-edited with Daniel Orrells and Gurminder K. Bhambra. She serves on the advisory board of the International Journal of the Classical Tradition.

Reviews
Every paragraph of this work contributes some insight that slows the reader down and causes one to ponder and rethink Morrison. I have taught some of Morrison's books for thirty years, but Roynon has made me want to start again and reread them from the beginning ... Her meaty and penetrating analysis demonstrates Morrison's "ambivalent engagement" in rewriting, even inverting, conventional American history. * William K. Freiert, Classical Journal *
original, well-written, and conceptually fresh .. a very insightful intervention in American cultural studies ... a landmark study of the subject ... a much needed and impressive contribution to Morrison scholarship. * Comments from the Book Prize Committee of the Toni Morrison Book Prize for the Best Single-Authored Book Award *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the 2015 Toni Morrison Book Prize for the Best Single-Authored Book.



Book Information
ISBN 9780199698684
Author Tessa Roynon
Format Hardback
Page Count 234
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Dimensions(mm) 221mm * 149mm * 20mm