Litteratur og sprog

Engelsk tekstlæsning: The Contemporary World and the Classics

Ved videnskabelig assistent, ph.d. Helene Grøn, KU

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi and Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles all adapt or use classical texts and figures, such as the Italian artist and engraver Piranesi, Homer’s Iliad or Sophocles’ Antigone. These books unfold the absurdity of being considered and made foreign in one’s own country and the life-long search for identity. When reading all these three novels, we will think about adaptation more broadly, what these myths gather and speak to in a contemporary setting, and how the frameworks of 'classics' work at addressing and redressing current social, political and cultural themes.

The three novels have all won The Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2012, 2018 and 2021 respectively. In future semesters we will continue these text reading courses to focus on winners of this prestigious annual book award celebrating fiction written by women.