W. Ralph Johnson

John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor of Classics and    Comparative Studies, Emeritus,
University of Chicago
l050 E 59th St, Chicago IL 60637

Education

B.A. Latin, 1961, UC, Berkeley
M.M. Latin, 1963, UCB
Ph.D. Classics, 1967, UCB

Positions

Assistant Prof. Classics, UC Berkeley, 1966-72
Associate Prof. Classics and Comp. Lit, UCB, 1972-4
Associate Prof. and Prof. Classics, Cornell University, 1974-81
Professor of Classics and Comp. Lit., University of Chicago,
l981-98 (Manly Prof. since 1989)
Emeritus, 1998

Awards & Honors

Distinguished Teaching Award, UC Berkeley 1971
Board of Directors, American Philological Association, 1981-84
Chair of Classics, UChicago, 1983-88
Christian Gauss Award for Literary Criticism, Phi Beta Kappa, 1983
The Martin Lectures in Classics at Oberlin, 1984-5
The Townsend Lectures in Classics at Cornell, 1988-89
Committee on Goodwin Award, APA, 1989-91
Committee on American Journal of Philology Award, 1997-2000
Visiting Prof., University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Winter 2001
Visiting Prof. UCLA, Spring 2002
Scheduled for Spring 2004, The Biggs Lectures (on Propertius and Augustan Poetry), Washington University, St. Louis

Books

Luxuriance and Economy: Cicero and the Alien Style (University of California Press, 1971)

       Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil's Aeneid (UC Press, l976)

        The Idea of Lyric (UC Press, l982);

Momentary Monsters: Lucan and his Heroes (Cornell, l987)

Horace and the Dialectics of Freedom (Cornell, 1993)

      Lucretius and the Modern World (Duckworth 2000)

Articles

'A Queen, a Great Queen: Cleopatra and the Politics of Misrepresentation,’ Arion 6.3 (1967)

'Micio and the Perils of Perfection,' California Studies in Classical Antiquity l (1968)

'Problems of the Counter-Classical Sensibility and its Critics,' CSCA 3 (l970)

'Propertius and the Emotions of Patriotism,' CSCA 6 (l973)

'Isocrates Flowering: the Rhetoric of St. Augustine, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 9.4 (l976)

'The Disintegration of Humanist Rhetoric,' Cornell Review 1 (l977)

'The Desolation of the Fasti, Classical Journal 74.1 (l978)

'Angst in Arcady:  Vergil and his Theocritus,' Atti del convegno mondiale scientifico di studi su Virgilio: 1981, Milan (1984)

'The Broken World (Vergil's Georgics), Arethusa 14 (1981)

'Ovid,' Ancient Writers:  Greece and Rome, ed. T. James Luce, 783-806, Scribners, New York 1982.

'Vergil's Bees,' in Roman Images, English Institute Essays, ed. A. Patterson (l984)

'Ringing Down the Curtain on Love: Ovid's Amores,' Helios 12.1 (1985)

'The Figure of Laertes:  Reflections on the Character of Aeneas,' in Vergil at 2000, ed. D. Bernard, AMS Press (l986)

'Medea Nunc Sum: the Closure of Seneca's Version,' Language and the Tragic Hero: Studies in Honor of Gordon Kirkwood, Cornell (l988)

'Messalla's Birthday: the Politics of Pastoral,' Arethusa, Spring (1990)

Foreword to Diana Rayor's Sappho's Lyre, UCalifornia Press (1991)

'The Return of Tutunus,' Arethusa Winter (1992)

'The Death of Pleasure: Literary Critics in Technological Societies,’ in The Interpretation of Roman Poetry, ed. K. Galinsky, Peter Berg, Frankfort a Main (1992)

'Dismal Decorations: Dryden's Machines in Aeneid 12,' in The Two Worlds of the Poet, ed. R. Wilhem, Wayne State Press (1992)

'Information and Form: Homer, Achilles and Statius,' in Epoch and Epic, ed. S. Oberhelman, Texas A&M Press (1993)

'The Rapes of Callisto,' Classical Journal 92 (1996)

Foreword to Vincent Katz's Propertius:  Book One, Sun and Moon Press (1996)

'Male Victimology in Juvenal 6,' Ramus 25.2 (1996)

'Final Exit: Propertius 4.11,' in Classical Closure, ed. Roberts, Fowler and Dunne, Princeton (1997)

Reply to Page du Bois, Panel of Classics and Comparative  Literature (APA 1995), Classical Philology Spring (1997)

'Vertumnus in Love,' CP Fall (1997)

'Confabulating Cephalus,' in Literary Imagination:  Essays in Honor of David Grene,  ed. T. Breyfogle, U Chicago Press (1999)

'Dis Aliter Visum: Self-Narration and Theodicy in Aeneid 2,'in Reading Vergil's Aeneid, ed. C. Perkell, U Oklahoma Press (1999)

'Imaginary Romans: Virgil and the Illusions of National Identity,' in Poets and Critics Read Virgil, ed. S. Spence, Yale (2001)

To appear: 'A Secret Garden in Georgics 4,' in Vergil, Philodemus and the Augustans, ed. Skinner and Johnston, U Texas Press (2003)

'Robert Lowell's American Aeneas,' in Festschrift for M. Putnam, ed.S. Spence, Materiali e discussioni (2004)

'Small Wonders: Martial, Book 14,' Festschrift for W. S. Anderson, ed. W. Batstone and G. Tissol, 2004?

Selected Reviews

Wilson Knight's Jackson Knight, Denver Quarterly Summer (1976)

Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Aeneid, American ScholarAutumn (1984)

Philip Hardie's Virgil's Aeneid: Cosmos and Imperium, Classical Journal 78 (1988)

Hans-Peter Stahl's Propertius: Love and War, Classical Philology 83 (1988)

Jan Bremmer's From Sappho to De Sade, Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences Sep. (1992)

J.P. Sullivan's Martial, Classical Journal 83 (1993)

Gregson Davis' Polyhymnia, Classical Philology 89 (1994)

Theodore Ziolkowski's Virgil and the Moderns, Comparative Literature Studies, 13.1, (1996)

Steven Shankman's In Search of the Classics, Modern Philology, Nov. (1997)

Ted Hughes' Tales from Ovid, Chicago Review, 44.2 (1998)

Monica Gale's Virgil on the Nature of Things, American Journal of Philology 52 (2002)

Recent Lectures

'Male Victimology in Juvenal 6,' the Sullivan Lecture, UC Santa Barbara (1996)

'The Fate of Ancient Latin Poetry in Global Societies,' Symposium on Classics in the Twenty-first Century, Ohio State University (l997)

'Martial as Lyricist,' Flavian Symposium, Villa Virgiliana, Naples, (1997)

'Martial and the Art of Doggerel: Book 14,' McMasters University, (1998) (UM, Ann Arbor, 200l; UCLA, 2002)

'Queer Catullus,' Symposium on Gender and Sexuality, American Philological Association, Dallas (1999)

'The Aeneid as Post-Colonial Text,' Classical Association of the Mid-western and Southern States, Knoxville (2000)

'The Corycian Gardener Again: Virgil as Epicurean,' Philodemus Symposium, Villa Virgiliana, Naples (2000)

'Ovid's Aeneas and the Poetics of Subversion,' the Moses Finley Lecture, Syracuse University (200l)

'Lowell's "Falling Asleep Over the Aeneid," University of Missouri, Feb. 2003; Miami University, Apr. 2003

Selected Verse

From Actium. Janus Press. (1976)

For Millay, Literary Review Spring (1978)

Shadows of Paradise, Quarry Summer (1978)

Homage to Winckelmann, Amherst Review 12 (1984)

Youth of Achilles, Hudson Review Summer (1985)

Jason, Endymion, Literary Review Spring (1986)

Cleopatra in Rome, Queen's Quarterly Summer (1986)

Octavian in Alexandria, American Scholar Spring (1987)

Narcissus, Schopenhauer at the Bahnhof, Delphica, Sequoia Spring (1987)

Pollux, Plains Poetry Review, July (1987)

Vertumnus, Hypnos, The Lyric, 67.4 (1987)

The Death of Cicero, Caesar Dividing Gaul, Literary Review, Summer 1988

Three Roman Ladies, From Actium, Death of Aeneas, Erasmus Fights a Funk, Leconte de Lisle Closes a Volume of Tertullian, Propertius 4.9, Herakles, Classical and Modern Literature, 20/3 (2000)

Preface to 'Herakles,' The Sorrows of Alcestis, CML 21/2 (200l)

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