Women Re-Creating Classics

The editors are to be commended for gifting to scholars of classical reception a vast trove of material relating to the rich afterlives of ancient Greek and Roman women in contemporary anglophone literature. In essay form and in conversation with women academics, invaluable insights are provided by an impressive line-up of women artists. – Fiona Macintosh, Emeritus Professor of Classical Reception, University of Oxford, UKWomen Re-Creating Classics: Contemporary Voices offers audiences an opportunity to flip the mirror of classical mythology and reflect it against our own experiences and visions. The most unique contributions of this volume come from the creative works by women novelists, poets and playwrights who have thoughtfully and beautifully engaged with classical tales of violence, oppression and heroism. Alongside well-known figures like M. Miller and J. Saint, the second half of this volume brings these creative voices into direct dialogue with more conventional scholars, allowing us to see the creative process and choices in action. For those considering this feminist neoclassical moment in the 21st century—its inspirations and implications—this is a key volume that places a wide range of diverse voices in context and conversation, rather than lionising only a few well-known bestsellers and pop hits. – Anise K. Strong, Associate Professor of History, Western Michigan University, USA

Emily Hauser is Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at the University of Exeter, UK. She is author of Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It (2025), How Women Became Poets (2023) and For the Most Beautiful (2016). She is co-editor of Reading Poetry, Writing Genre (2018).

Helena Taylor is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter, UK. She is author of Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France (2024) and The Lives of Ovid in Seventeenth-Century French Culture (2017). She is co-editor of Ovid in French: Reception by Women from the Renaissance to the Present (2023) and Women and Querelles in Early Modern France (2021).