Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction Illustrated Edition

Well written and interesting.

This is a good book but its concept of what's considered to be classical literature is a little narrow. Anything that does not fall into a specific literary genre is not worthy of being included in the canon. So you won't see anything from philosophers like Plato's Republic/Symposium/etc or Marcus Aurelius Meditations which lots of people consider as literature. Historiography is considered one of the genres but giants like Xenophon are not mentioned but far less influential Roman authors are. Novels are covered but there is no mention of Lucian's A True Story which is considered to be the first "SciFi" book of all time. I can go on with these examples for a while, but I think you get the point.Other than this the book is pretty good and always AVSI series does not disappoint.

I picked this up out of curiosity, aware that it is practically impossible to cover such an enormous historical, cultural and intellectual terrain in so few pages. But I was surprised at what Allan achieved in this little book. It speaks to his cleverness -- and ability to be careful and concise -- that the book is so good. It is lucid and clear but chock-full of insights, even though space is at a premium. Just about anything he turns his attention to is illuminated. He talks intelligently about genre, authors, manuscript transmission of texts, sources and, last but not least, the content of various works: from drama to poetry to military history to epic and so on and on. Anyone interested in this subject will value this little volume a great deal.

Organized by genre (yet the genres are presented in historical order), Oxford scholar William Allan gives a nice overview that allows grad students and others to take a refreshing look at the big picture.

Classical Literature: A Very Short Introduction by William Allan is to be thoroughly recommended to anyone unfamiliar with the world of the great books of the ancient Greeks (Hellenes) and Romans. It is concise and presents apposite short critiques of major works of "literature" which is just what readers need to decide if they should read or buy the work.But this useful work because it seems to focus only on "literature" excludes philosophy and science and late Roman literature (e.g. Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle etc. and the major historians, Ammianus Marcellinus and Prokopios), major works by authors it does cover (e.g. The Moral Letters and all Seneca except the tragedies), and is completely silent on esoteric writing and reading (see Arthur Melzer's now standard work on this classic aspect of classical - and modern - literature). Given it is only 126 page of texts, surely some extra few pages (say 12) could have been devoted to including these features to expand this great little book's coverage as first time readers may not come across reviews of them elsewhere.

This is the perfect introduction to Classical Literature. Witty, engagingly written, and full of fascinating detail. I learned a lot in a very short time!