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Hanna M. Roisman
Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Classics
Classics



Phone: 207-859-4162
Fax: 859-4705
Email:
hroisman@colby.edu

Mailing Address:
4162 Mayflower Hill
Waterville, Maine 04901-8841

Areas of Expertise:
  • Homeric epic
  • Greek and Roman tragedy
  • Classical literature and modern film
  • Publications

    The Odyssey Re-formed with Frederick Ahl. This is the most stimulating and enjoyable book about Homer that I have read in many years. It is attentie to all the rrelevant issues and bibliography, methodologically sound, clearly and carefully argued, but also boldly original. Along the way, Ahl and Roisman offer may pleasures and fresh insights. Well brought out are the muse's narrative etiquette and mythopoeic agility, the resonance of patterns and symbols, wordplay, pathos, and humor. Jeffrey Henderson, Boston University



    Nothing Is As It Seems: The Tragedy of the Implicit in Euripides' Hippolytus In this valuable book, Hanna M. Roisman provides a uniquely comprehensive look at Euripides' Hippolytus. roisman begins with an examination of the ancient preference for the implicit style, and suggests a possible reaidng of Euripides' first treatment of the myth that would account for the Athenians audiences' reservations about his Hippolytus Veiled. She proceeds to analyze significant scenes in the play, including Hippolytus' prayer to Artemis, Phaedra's delirium, Phaedra's "confession" speech, and the intereactions between Theseus and Hippolytus. Concluding with a dission of the meaning of the tragic in the Hippolytus, Roisman questions the applicability in this case of the ideas of the tragic flaw. Nothing is as It Seems includes extensive comparisons of Euripides' play with the Phaedra of Seneca. This is a very important book for students and scholars of Greek tragedy, literature, and rhetoric.




    Euripides' Alcestis with Notes and Commentary by C.A.E. Lusching and H.M.Roisman. Vol29 in the Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture.Euripides' Alcestis - perhaps the most anthologized Attic drama - is an ideal text for students reading their first play in the original Greek. Literary commentaries and language aids in most editions are too advanced or too elementary for intermediate students of the language, but in this new student edition, Luschnig and Roisman remedy such deficiencies. In their presentation, Luschnig and Roisman have initiated a new method for introducing students to current scholarship.



    Sophocles' Philoctetes

    Sophocles' Philoctetes is an extraordinarily timely and timeless play. After having cynically abandoned the hero Philoctetes on a deserted island some ten years earlier, the wily Odysseus strives to lure him to join the Greek forces in their war against Troy. The play dramatizes the suffering and rage of Philoctetes and the moral and emotional development of Odysseus' assistant, the young Neoptolemus.

    This is an introduction to the play for students and lay readers. The well focused chapters on Greek theatre and performance, the mythical background, and the literary, intellectual, and political context illuminate the issues with which the play grapples. Its persuasive analyses of the characters and plot shed light on the play's complexities and ambiguities, making Sophocles' great play accessible, enjoyable and meaningful to modern readers.