The Novel of Neronian Rome and its Multimedial Transformations

Sienkiewicz's Quo vadis

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Edited by Monika Woźniak and Maria Wyke

Type: Studies
Subject: One Film > Quo Vadis? (Guazzoni)
Keywords: Enrico Guazzoni, Mervyn LeRoy, peplum, adaptation
Publishing date: 2020
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Collection: Classical Presences
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 350 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-19-886753-1

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Book Presentation:
• An interdisciplinary exploration of how Sienkiewicz's novel was turned into a wide variety of cultural products
• Draws on Polish-speaking scholarship to make features of the novel accessible for readers not able to engage with the original
• Provides a detailed case study of classical reception in popular culture

The Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1905 largely on the basis of his historical novel Quo vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero. The novel's vivid and moving reconstruction of religious persecution and struggle against tyranny catapulted its author into literary stardom. But, before long, Quo vadis began to 'detach' itself from the person of its author and to become a multimedial, mass culture phenomenon. In the West and in the East, it was adapted for stage and screen, provided the inspiration for works of music and other genres of literature, was transformed into comic strips and illustrated children's books, was cited in advertising, and referenced in everyday objects of material culture. This volume explores the strategies Sienkiewicz used to recreate Neronian Rome and the reasons his novel was so avidly consumed and reproduced in new editions, translations, visual illustrations, and adaptations to the stage and screen across Europe and in the United States. The contributions render visible for English-speaking readers the impact of a Polish work of high literature on the presence of Nero, Christian persecution, and ancient Rome in Western popular culture.

About the authors:
Edited by Monika Woźniak, Associate Professor of Polish Language and Literature, University of Rome 'La Sapienza', and Maria Wyke, Professor and Chair of Latin, Department of Greek and Latin, University College London Monika Woźniak is Associate Professor of Polish Language and Literature at the University of Rome 'La Sapienza'. Her research has addressed issues of literary translation, children's literature in translation, and audiovisual translation. She is co-author of Historia na ekranie. Gatunek filmowy a przekład audiowizualny (History on the Screen. Cinematographic Genre and Audiovisual Translation) (Kraków, 2018). She is co-editor of Cinderella across Cultures (Wayne University Press, 2016) and the conference proceedings Quo vadis: da caso letterario al fenomeno della cultura di massa (Rome, 2016). Maria Wyke is Professor of Latin at University College London. Her research interests include the reception of ancient Rome, especially in popular culture. She is the author of Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History (Routledge, 1997), The Roman Mistress: Ancient and Modern Representations (OUP, 2000), Caesar: A Life in Western Culture (Granta and the University of Chicago Press, 2007), and Caesar in the USA (University of California Press, 2012). Wyke has edited or co-edited eight volumes to date, including The Ancient World in Silent Cinema (CUP, 2013), Julius Caesar in Western Culture (Blackwell, 2006), and The Uses and Abuses of Antiquity (Peter Lang, 1999).

Press Reviews:
"His paper is based on intimate acquaintance with the rhythms, leaders and main themes of Polish classicism. This level of insight should appeal greatly to an anglophone audience, who will surely learn much from its observations on the importance of Latinity to the creation of a Polish national image, especially under the Russian and German occupations, and from its analysis of the ways in which the Polish language was masterfully employed to construct an inspirational but believable picture of Neronian Rome." - TOM STEVENSON, The Classical Review

"The Novel of Neronian Rome and its Multimedial Transformations: Sienkiewicz's "Quo vadis" is a significant contribution to the field of classical reception in general and specifically on the various permutations of Quo vadis. Whether within an individual chapter or section or the entire collection, teachers, students, and scholars of Nero, ancient Rome on screen, and the reception of Rome in general will find much useful and interesting material." - Meredith Prince, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

See the publisher website: Oxford University Press

See Quo Vadis? (Guazzoni) (1913) on IMDB ...

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