W. Ralph Johnson

W. Ralph JohnsonW. Ralph Johnson (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley, 1967) is the John Matthews Manly Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Classics. He is the author of, among others, Lucretius and the Modern World; Momentary Monsters: Lucan and His Heroes; Luxuriance and Economy: Cicero and the Alien Style; Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid; The Idea of Lyric: Lyric Modes in Ancient and Modern Poetry; and Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom: Readings in Epistles 1. He has also written articles and reviews on Vergil, Horace, Propertius, Ovid, and Terence. His teaching has been devoted to Latin poetry of all periods and to Greek and Latin rhetoric.

Contact

email: wjohnso1@uchicago.edu

Honors and Awards

  • 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, 1984-85
  • 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
  • The Biggs Lectures, Washington University, Spring 2004
  • Mellon Emeritus Grant, 2005

Publications

Books

  • Luxuriance and Economy: Cicero and the Alien Style (University of California Press, 1971)
  • Darkness Visible: A Study of Vergil’s Aeneid (UC Press, 1976)
  • The Idea of Lyric (UC Press, 1982);
  • Momentary Monsters: Lucan and his Heroes (Cornell, 1987)
  • Horace and the Dialectics of Freedom (Cornell, 1993)
  • Lucretius and the Modern World (Duckworth 2000)
  • Introduction to Stanley Lombardo’s Translation of the Aeneid (Hackett Press, 2005).
  • A Latin Lover in Ancient Rome: Readings in Propertius and his Genre (Ohio State University Press, 2009).

Articles and Contributions to Edited Volumes

  • “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 (1970)
  • “Propertius and the Emotions of Patriotism,” CSCA 6 (1973)
  • “Isocrates Flowering: the Rhetoric of St. Augustine,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, 9.4 (1976)
  • “The Disintegration of Humanist Rhetoric,” Cornell Review 1 (1977)
  • “The Desolation of the Fasti,” Classical Journal 74.1 (1978)
  • “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 (1984)
  • “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 (1986)
  • “Medea Nunc Sum: the Closure of Seneca’s Version,” Language and the Tragic Hero: Studies in Honor of Gordon Kirkwood, Cornell (1988)
  • “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)
  • “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).
  • “The Neoterics,” in Blackwell’s Companion to Catullus, ed. M. Skinner (2007)
  • Introduction to Stanley Lombardo’s Metamorphoses, Hackett (2010)
  • “The Epistles,” in Blackwell’s Compantion to Horace, ed. G. Davis (2010)
  • “Epic” in The Classical Tradition, ed. Grafton and Most, Harvard (2010)
  • “Propertius,” in Blackwell’s Companion to Roman Elegy, ed. B. Gold (2012)

Selected Reviews

  • Wilson Knight’s Jackson Knight, Denver Quarterly Summer (1976)
  • Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of the Aeneid, American Scholar Autumn (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)

Most Recent Courses Taught

  • Juvenal
  • Greek Thought and Literature
  • Propertius
  • Ovid’s Metamorphoses