Part 1 of Literature, Classics and Class

Thursday 1 July 2010, 5.00 - 7.30pm, followed by a reception
The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1

Peggy Reynolds, Reader in English Literature at Queen Mary University of London and presenter of Radio 4's Adventures in Poetry, chaired a special event featuring an unprecedented programme of poetry and prose which vividly brings to life the role of the Greek and Roman Classics in the history of class consciousness.

Tony Harrison, last year awarded the inaugural Pen/Pinter prize for his 'unmistakable and passionate voice', is a classically educated poet who has never forgotten his working-class roots and has used classical authors to forge an inclusive public poetry. He read selected poems from The School of Eloquence, Loiners, Under the Clock, and The Gaze of the Gorgon and extracts from his translations, plays and films, including the Oresteia, The Trackers of Oxyrhynchus and Prometheus.

Literature, Classics and Class: Readings by Tony Harrison

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