Knowra Classics Classics Classics is the study of ancient Greek and Roman languages, literature, history, philosophy, and material cultures. It combines textual interpretation with historical and archaeological evidence.
Ancient Greek : The language spoken and written in ancient Greece, with major literary forms including epic, drama, and philosophy. Reading Greek texts in their original language is a traditional foundation of classical study.
Homer : The traditionally named author of the ancient Greek epics the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homeric poetry anchors study of Greek epic, oral tradition, and archaic culture.
Renaissance humanism : An intellectual movement that revived the study of classical languages, literature, and moral philosophy in Renaissance Europe. Its recovery of Greek and Latin learning helped establish classical texts as educational foundations.
Classical education : An educational tradition centered on Greek and Latin language, literature, and ancient history. Classics became a defining element of elite schooling and university curricula.
Decolonizing the curriculum : The effort to examine and change curricula shaped by colonial power, exclusions, and inherited hierarchies. Classics departments debate how to address the field’s links to imperialism and racialized scholarship.
Latin : The language of ancient Rome, used in literature, law, administration, and later scholarship. Latin texts provide direct evidence for Roman literature, politics, and social life.
Virgil : The Roman poet who wrote the Aeneid, an epic about Aeneas and Rome’s legendary origins. The Aeneid shows how Roman literature reworked Greek epic for a Roman political world.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann : An eighteenth-century German art historian whose writings shaped the study of ancient Greek art. His influential account of Greek art helped form modern ideals of classical antiquity.
Western canon : A body of works treated as central to the literary and intellectual traditions of Europe and its cultural successors. Classical texts have long occupied a privileged place within debates over canonical education.
Classical reception studies : An interdisciplinary approach to the changing meanings of ancient Greek and Roman works across later periods and cultures. It broadens classical inquiry beyond antiquity to include appropriation, reinterpretation, and resistance.
Show all 27