Professor Oliver Taplin FBA
Subject: Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology
College appointment: Emeritus Fellow
Contact
Background
I did my first degree and doctorate at Oxford, and my first post was at Bristol University. I had the good fortune to be made a Tutorial Fellow at Magdalen in 1973 at the age of 30. I stayed in the post for 35 years, because there was, quite simply, no better job that I would have preferred. During that time I was made a Professor, a Fellow of the British Academy and President of the Classical Association. I retired in 2008, but I continue to come into the College now and then.
Teaching
My main teaching has been in all aspects of ancient Greek epic, tragedy and comedy. Further related subjects include vase-painting and theatre; performance studies; reception of ancient literature in modern poetry; practical translation workshops. I still hold some classes for Magdalen undergraduates, especially on Greek theatre.
Research
My research and my teaching interests have largely been the same, and have been mutually reinforcing. My book TRAGEDY : the Dawn of Drama in Ancient Athens is due to be published by Princeton University Press in January 2027. Since retirement I have also found the time to embark on translations from ancient Greek into English verse.
Some publications
- The Stagecraft of Aeschylus (Oxford 1977, reissued as a paperback 1989).
- Greek Tragedy in Action (London and Berkeley 1978; revised edition 1985); also translated into Greek, Japanese and Polish.
- Greek Fire (London 1990); also translated into Dutch, Portuguese, French, German and Greek.
- Homeric Soundings. The Shaping of the Iliad (Oxford 1992, reprinted in paperback, 1994).
- Comic Angels – and other approaches to Greek drama through vase-painting (Oxford 1993, reprinted in paperback, 1994).
- Pots and Plays. Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-painting of the Fourth Century BC (Getty Museum Publications, Los Angeles, 2007)
- Sophocles Oedipus the King and other tragedies (Oxford World’s Classics, 2016)
- Aeschylus The Oresteia (Norton, New York, 2018)
- Sophocles Antigone and other tragedies (Oxford World’s Classics, 2021)
