Classical types
Sophie J. V. Mills · 2025
The classicists of the previous chapter were typically male, upper-class (or striving to be so), often older or declining, and forbidding, dry guardians of “holy” material, 1 although that material retained its own irrepressible life and vigour. These characteristics continue into later 20th-century fictions, but through the gradual retreat of Classics from the educational table, especially in the 1960s and beyond, variations begin to emerge from long-established associations. This chapter will group mostly later 20th-century classicists in broad thematic categories. The arrangement is roughly chronological within the sections, but many classicists are shaped by several tropes, nor is strict chronological order always the most logical order when establishing thematic connections, and some chronological overlaps exist between earlier and later chapters.