Collaboration in Greek and Latin Literature

Demonstrates the importance of collaboration in Greek and Roman literary culture, discussing texts from Homer to Tacitus.

Demonstrates the centrality of collaboration to the production of Greek and Roman literature and explores the depictions of collaboration within these texts. In so doing, the volume challenges the essentialisation of the author as the sole producer and creator of a literary work.Spotlighting the significance of collaboration to Greek and Latin literature, this volume asks how our conceptions of ancient literary culture change if we privilege all the various collaborations which lead up to the production of a text. In so doing, it challenges the essentialisation of the author as the sole producer and creator of a literary work. The book builds on recent applications of network theory and distributed authorship to classical literature and is interested not just in the multiple agents of literary production, but also in the imbalances of power that they often entail. Simultaneously, it explores depictions of collaboration within Greek and Latin literature itself: what happens when we read not for competition and zero-sum games, but for moments of teamwork and working together? These two complementary approaches frequently intersect and speak to each other in productive ways.