Screening the Golden Ages of the Classical Tradition

This collection of fourteen essays explores how the dominant media of our time – film and television – have engaged with the golden age as formulated in the Western classical tradition.Drawing on ancient Greek and Roman literature and culture, from Hesiod to Suetonius, these essays assess the far-reaching influence of the golden age concept on screen texts ranging from prestige projects like Gladiator and HBO’s Rome, to cult classics Xanadu and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, made by auteurs including Jules Dassin and the Coen Brothers. The book also looks at fantasy (Game of Thrones), science fiction (Serenity), horror (The Walking Dead), war/combat (the 300 franchise; Centurion), and the American Western.Situates recurring outbreaks of nostalgia for earlier times within a transhistorical phenomenonIlluminates how this cultural phenomenon is rooted in the discourses that emerge from the classical tradition–so much so, that both high-minded and base political movements invoke classical antiquity in their ideological campaignsExplores how such invocations of the mythical past are frequently accomplished not only through political rhetoric, but also through popular media