King's College, Cambridge Classics Reading List

King's College, Cambridge

Classics Reading List For prospective students

https://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/reading-lists/classics-reading-list

Those who study Latin and/or Greek at school characteristically study a small number of texts primarily for the purpose of construing the language. Close analysis of texts is an essential part of Classics – but it is not the only part, and some of the features of particular passages only be come clear in the context of the whole of a text, or indeed of other texts. So if you are doing Latin and/or Greek at school it makes sense for you to read in translation the rest of the work you are studying.
If you are studying Classical Civilisation then you are likely to be reading a number of whole texts, but often in a limited number of literary genres. If that is the case then you will find it useful to sample a range of other genres, and in particular a range of prose texts. If you have not read them already, look at:

• Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War (especially books 1–2): Thucydides’ reflections on the problems of discovering what happened and working out why it happened have been immensely influential.
• Plato's Republic: An extraordinary work which makes clear the link s between political actions, moral judgments and what it is to know something.
• Tacitus' Annals: (especially books 1–4) A gripping analysis of the problems for an absolute ruler in securing elite and popular support to run an empire.

Classics at Cambridge involves the study of philosophy, history, art and archaeology, and philology as well as of the classical languages and literature. To get an impression of what the advantages are of such integrated study, take a look at M. Beard and J. Henderson Classics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 1995). One of the best ways of discovering about Classics is to read Omnibus, the journal produced twice a year by the Classical Association specially for sixth-formers. Every issue contains a dozen or so short articles on aspects of Classics, written by those who teach in universities. It costs only £3 and both the current number and back-numbers are available from the Classical Association website.

For offer holders

One of the things everyone is surprised by is how much reading you are expected to do as a Cambridge Classics student. Whatever college you have got a place at, you will find yourself being expected not only to get up to speed reading Greek and Latin texts on your own, but to read widely in classical literature in translation and in what modern scholars have said about it.
Your ability to take advantage of the academic possibilities Cambridge offers you will be much increased if you also do some basic orientation before you come to Cambridge. This is particularly true at King's, where we are impatient to get on with the amazing things one can dig out of Latin and Greek texts - but one can only begin digging once one has read those texts. So before you come you should get some of the most central texts under your belt, and begin to explore the sorts of things that scholars do with them.
Here is a very short reading list, in three parts.
The first part lists some central classical texts. Read them in English translation, but, if you can, read the suggested parts in Greek (if you have A level or equivalent Greek) or Latin. The second part lists some introductory works good for orientation (and as it happens with quite heavy King's connections!). The third part lists some classic works of scholarship which offer ways in to Classics which you may not have yet come across.

Part I

• Homer Iliad (books 1–3 in Greek) - If you think this is all boys toys, start by reading Iliad 14 with its guide to seduction...
• Sophocles Oedipus the King
• Plato Republic (book 1 in Greek)
• Virgil Aeneid (books 1 and 2 in Latin) - Read this after you have read the Iliad and marvel at how Virgil reworks the earlier epic in Books 7-12. Books 1-6 rework the Odyssey.
• Tacitus Annals (book 1 in Latin)
• Juvenal Satires (1, 3 and 6 in Latin) - about as vicious as you can get, and not at all pc. Make sure you get an unexpurgated translation.

Part II

• S. Goldhill Love, Sex and Tragedy: how the ancient world shapes our lives (London, 2004)
• C. Kelly The Roman Empire: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2006)
• C. Osborne Presocratic philosophy: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2005)
• R. Osborne Greek History (London, 2005)
• R. Osborne Archaic and Classical Greek Art (Oxford, 1998)

Part III

• R. Buxton Imaginary Greece: the contexts of mythology (Cambridge, 1994)
• J. Davidson Courtesans and Fishcakes: the consuming passions of classical Athens (London, 1997)
• E.R. Dodds The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley, 1951)
• D.C. Feeney Literature and Religion at Rome: cultures, contexts and beliefs (Cambridge, 1998)
• S. Hinds Allusion and Intertext: dynamics of appropriation in Roman poetry (Cambridge, 1998)
• G.E.R. Lloyd Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the origins and development of Greek science (Cambridge, 1979)
• B.A.O. Williams Shame and Necessity (Berkeley 1993)

For more information, please consult the Faculty of Classics website.