Dr Thomas Nelson
Qualifications: BA MSt Oxon PhD Cantab
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6654-8939
Link to college page: https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/people/thomas-nelson
As a student, I completed my BA and MSt at University College, Oxford and my PhD at Trinity College, Cambridge. I then took up a Research Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (2018–21), before returning to Oxford as a Stipendiary Lecturer at Wadham (2021–22), a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow (2022–2024), a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson (2022–2024), and now a Career Development Fellow at St Hilda’s (2024–).
My research spans widely across Greek and Latin literature, focused on questions of politics, aesthetics and intertextuality. I’m particularly interested in rethinking traditional narratives of literary history, reflected in the two main strands of my current research: first, I explore the (dis)continuities between the intertextual practices of archaic/classical poets and those of later literary cultures; and second, I unearth the distinctive aesthetics and priorities of Hellenistic poets located beyond Ptolemaic Alexandria and the impact of these alternative poetic traditions at Rome, drawing particularly on the evidence of papyri, inscriptions and other fragments.
My first book (Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry) was published in 2023 with Cambridge University Press. I am now writing a Cambridge Element on Intertextuality and the Myths of Greek Tragedy and pursuing a larger project on Hellenistic epic fragments. I’m also in the final stages of co-editing three volumes: on Hellenistic aesthetics, collaboration in ancient literature, and Pergamon’s influence at Rome.
Greek literature, Latin literature, epic, lyric, drama, Hellenistic poetry, intertextuality, aesthetics, politics, tradition
I teach a broad range of language and literature options to undergraduates across Latin and Greek. I have recently lectured on Greek Epic, Lyric, Tragedy, Hellenistic Poetry and Hellenistic History. I also supervise graduate students and offer text-based graduate seminars in Greek and Latin Literature and their reception (including “Puzzle Poetry” and “The Underworld”).
Recent research topics that I have supervised include “Squaring the Circle: Pindar’s Firmament and Cosmic Scaling”, “The Hut of Achilles: Relative Space in the Iliad”, “Costume and the Politics of Maternity in Euripides’ Ion”, “Jeu d’Esprit: Gorgias’ Παίγνιον as Philosophical Method”, and “The Yogis of the West: Affinities in Discourses of Training the Body in Ancient Greece and India”.
Full Publications:
Selected Publications:
Books
Intertextuality and the Myths of Greek Tragedy. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, (under contract))
Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 2023) [Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009086882]
Edited Volumes
Collaboration in Greek and Latin Literature. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, under review) (co-edited with T. Kearey and M. Leventhal)
Pergamon and Rome: Culture, Identity, and Influence. Oxford (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) (co-edited with G. Pezzini and S. Rebeggiani)
Hellenistic Aesthetics: Approaches and Frameworks, Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies. Oxford (Oxford University Press, forthcoming) (co-edited with M. Chaldekas)
Journal Articles
“Attic Tradition and Tragic Allusion in the Ithyphallic Hymn for Demetrius Poliorcetes”, Classical Antiquity (forthcoming)
“[Theocritus], Idyll 23: A Stony Aesthetic”, Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies (forthcoming)
“Approaching Hellenistic Aesthetics”, Bulletin for the Institute of Classical Studies (co-authored with M. Chaldekas, forthcoming)
“Sappho’s Rose-Fingered Moon and Traditional Referentiality”, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 64.2 (2024) 147–161 [Open Access: https://grbs.library.duke.edu/index.php/grbs/article/view/16898]
“Iphigenia in the Iliad and the Architecture of Homeric Allusion”, TAPA 152.1 (2022) 55–101 [https://doi.org/10.1353/apa.2022.0007]
“Intertextual Agōnes in Archaic Greek Epic: Penelope vs. the Catalogue of Women”, Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic 5 (2021) 25–57 [Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1163/24688487-00501002]
“Archilochus’ Cologne Epode and Homer’s Quivering Spear (fr. 196a.52 IEG²)”, Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 219 (2021) 4–7
“Achilles’ Heel: (Im)mortality in the Iliad”, Omnibus 82 (2021) 7–9
“Tragic Noise and Rhetorical Frigidity in Lycophron’s Alexandra”, Classical Quarterly 71.1 (2021) 200–215 (co-authored with K. Molesworth) [Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009838821000409]
“Attalid Aesthetics: The Pergamene ‘Baroque’ Reconsidered”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 140 (2020) 176–198 [Open Access: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0075426920000087]
“Nicander’s Hymn to Attalus: Pergamene Panegyric”, The Cambridge Classical Journal 66 (2020) 182–202 [https://doi.org/10.1017/S1750270519000083]
“Metapoetic Manoeuvres Between Callimachus and Apollonius: A Response to Annette Harder”, Aevum Antiquum 19 (2019) 107–127 [https://doi.org/10.26350/020747_000046]
“‘Most Musicall, Most Melancholy’: Avian Aesthetics of Lament in Greek and Roman Elegy”, Dictynna: Revue de poétique latine 16 (2019) 1–47 [Open Access: https://doi.org/10.4000/dictynna.1914]
Book Chapters
“Hellenistic Poetry Outside Alexandria”, in M. A. Harder and J. H. Klooster (eds) (forthcoming) A Companion to Hellenistic Poetry. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press)
“Ennius and Archaic Greek Epic”, in S. La Barbera and J. S. Nethercut (eds) (forthcoming) Oxford Handbook of Ennius. New York (Oxford University Press)
“Famous First Words: Incipit-Allusions Across Time”, in P. Bing, A. Faulkner and R. Höschele (eds) (forthcoming) Arts of Allusion: Greek Intertextuality Over Time
“Early Hellenistic Epic”, in M. Perale, J. Kwapisz, G. Taietti and B. Cartlidge (eds) (forthcoming) Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press)
“Moero of Byzantium”, in M. Perale, J. Kwapisz, G. Taietti and B. Cartlidge (eds) (forthcoming) Hellenistic Poetry Before Callimachus. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press)
“Apollonis of Cyzicus and the Pergamene Politics of Divine Motherhood”, in M. Chaldekas and M. Solitario (eds) (forthcoming) The Politics of Female Divinity in the Hellenistic Period. London (Routledge)
“Seleucid Ideology and Aesthetics in the Aetion of Apamea-on-the-Orontes (Ps.-Oppian, Cynegetica 2.100–158)”, in M. A. Harder, J. H. Klooster, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds) (forthcoming) Hellenistic Poetry Beyond Alexandria. Hellenistica Groningana. Leuven (Peeters)
“From Colophon to Rome: Pergamene Nicander, Latin Poetry, and Ovid’s Ceyx and Alcyone”, in T. J. Nelson, G. Pezzini and S. Rebeggiani (eds) (forthcoming) Pergamon and Rome: Culture, Identity, and Influence. Oxford (Oxford University Press)
“Pergamon and Rome: A Special Relationship?”, in T. J. Nelson, G. Pezzini and S. Rebeggiani (eds) (forthcoming) Pergamon and Rome: Culture, Identity, and Influence. Oxford (Oxford University Press) (co-authored with G. Pezzini and S. Rebeggiani)
“Epiphany and Salvation in Inscribed Hellenistic Poetry: Bacchic and Odyssean Resonances in the Verse-Inscription of Hyssaldomos of Mylasa”, in M. A. Harder, J. H. Klooster, R. F. Regtuit, G. C. Wakker and C. L. Caspers (eds) (forthcoming) Crisis and Resilience in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana. Leuven (Peeters)
“Talk and Text: The Pre-Alexandrian Footnote from Homer to Theodectes”, in A. Kelly and H. L. Spelman (eds) (2024) Texts and Intertexts in Archaic and Classical Greece. Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 235–255
“Beating the Galatians: Ideologies, Analogies and Allegories in Hellenistic Literature and Art”, in A. Coşkun (ed.) (2022) Galatian Victories and Other Studies into the Agency and Identity of the Galatians in the Hellenistic and Early-Roman Periods. Colloquia Antiqua 33. Leuven (Peeters) 97–144
“The Coma Stratonices: Royal Hair Encomia and Ptolemaic-Seleucid Rivalry?”, in M. A. Harder, J. H. Klooster, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds) (2021) Women and Power in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana 26. Leuven (Peeters) 299–320
“Repeating the Unrepeated: Allusions to Homeric Hapax Legomena in Archaic and Classical Greek Poetry”, in D. Beck (ed.) (2021) Repetition, Communication, and Meaning in the Ancient World. Orality and Literacy in the Ancient World Vol. 13, Mnemosyne Supplement 442. Leiden (Brill) 119–157 [https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004466661_007]
“Penelopean Simaetha: A Flawed Paradigm of Femininity in Theocritus’ Second Idyll”, in C. Cusset, P. Belenfant and C.-E. Nardone (eds) (2020) Féminités hellénistiques: Voix, genre, représentations. Hellenistica Groningana 25. Leuven (Peeters) 387–405
“The Shadow of Aristophanes: Hellenistic Poetry’s Reception of Comic Poetics”, in M. A. Harder, R. F. Regtuit and G. C. Wakker (eds) (2018) Drama and Performance in Hellenistic Poetry. Hellenistica Groningana 23. Leuven (Peeters) 225–271
Contributions
“Équitation, Char/Horseriding, chariot” (Latin) in J.-P. Guez, F. Klein, J. Peigney and E. Prioux (eds) (forthcoming) Dictionnaire des images du poétique dans l'Antiquité. Paris (Classiques Garnier)
“Pas, Traces de pas /Steps, footsteps” (Greek and Latin) in J.-P. Guez, F. Klein, J. Peigney and E. Prioux (eds) (forthcoming) Dictionnaire des images du poétique dans l'Antiquité. Paris (Classiques Garnier)
“Vol, Larcin/Stealing, theft” (Greek and Latin) in J.-P. Guez, F. Klein, J. Peigney and E. Prioux (eds) (forthcoming) Dictionnaire des images du poétique dans l'Antiquité. Paris (Classiques Garnier)
“Clôture, fermeture: Épigramme Grecque et Latine” in C. Urlacher-Becht (ed.) (2022) Dictionnaire de l'épigramme littéraire dans l'Antiquité grecque et romaine. Turnhout (Brepols) 349–352
“Érudition: Épigramme Grecque” in C. Urlacher-Becht (ed.) (2022) Dictionnaire de l'épigramme littéraire dans l'Antiquité grecque et romaine. Turnhout (Brepols) 592–594, 597–599
Reviews
E. T. Barker and J. P. Christensen, Homer's Thebes: Epic Rivalries and the Appropriation of Mythical Pasts (Cambridge MA, 2020). Classical Journal 117.2 (2021–2022) 232–234 [https://doi.org/10.1353/tcj.2021.0013]
M. S. Visscher, Beyond Alexandria: Literature and Empire in the Seleucid World (Oxford, 2020). Classical Review 71.2 (2021) 336–338 [https://www.doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X2100086X]
J. Burgess et al. (eds) Yearbook of Ancient Greek Epic 3 (Leiden and Boston, 2019). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2020.03.32 [https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2020/2020.03.32]
R. Rawles, Simonides the Poet: Intertextuality and Reception (Cambridge and New York, 2018). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2019.02.46 [http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2019/2019-02-46.html]
C. Tsagalis (ed.), Poetry in Fragments: Studies on the Hesiodic Corpus and its Afterlife (Berlin, 2017). Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2018.07.33 [http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2018/2018-07-33.html]
D. Sider (ed.), Hellenistic Poetry. A Selection (Ann Arbor, 2017). Classical Review 68.1 (2018) 287 [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X1700186X]
P. Linant de Bellefonds et al. (eds), D’Alexandre à Auguste. Dynamiques de la création dans les arts visuels et la poésie (Rennes, 2015). Classical Review 67.1 (2017) 246–248 [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X16002468]
S. A. Stephens, Callimachus: The Hymns (Oxford and New York, 2015). Mnemosyne 69.6 (2016) 1070–1073 [https://doi.org/10.1163/1568525X-12342221]
P. J. Kosmin, The Land of the Elephant Kings. Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire (Cambridge MA and London, 2014). Classical Review 66.1 (2016) 180–182 [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0009840X15001663]
