While the reception of Greek tragedy is by now well-trodden terrain for the classical reception scholar, responses to Old Comedy are still harder to come by. Peter Swallow's study of the reception of Aristophanes in Britain in the Long Nineteenth Century examines the playwright's appearance, following a period in which there had been ‘few translations, and no commentaries’ in English, and his obscure contemporary references proved irksome to Hellenists (23). As a result, while the political – or intentionally apolitical – dimensions of his case studies are a consistent topic throughout the study, we also see Swallow unpick some more subtle or ‘subterranean’ receptions among their more explicit companions. This is particularly the case in the chapter on W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911), who, although known as the ‘English Aristophanes’ (4), showed little in the way of direct acknowledgement of his Attic predecessor. However, characterizing Gilbert as a beloved, but moderate humourist, Swallow identifies several modes of Aristophanic reception across a number of his works. For example, his burlesque Thespis (1871) not only has similar plot points to those found in Birds but also shares with the Aristophanic Jacques Offenbach, whose ‘influence on the British tradition is impossible to overstate’ (98), a cheeky attitude towards the gods. Gilbert's body of work and attitude to classical sources is contextualized with reference to the work of J. R. Planché (1796–1880), in whom classical reception scholarship has already shown a significant amount of interest and who appears throughout this book, even having his own chapter. Here, Swallow helps to fill in some notable gaps in the history of Victorian burlesque and related performance forms.

Following their 2013 monograph, Helen of Troy. Beauty, Myth, Devastation, Ruby Blondell delivers a study on screen representations of Helen in the USA, ranging from The Private Life of Helen of Troy (1927), via Star Trek, Hollywood epics, and Xena: Warrior Princess, to Helen of Troy (2003).1 Blondell takes a rounded approach to their investigation, looking at different strands in the ancient tradition and analysing numerous factors related to the production and reception of the case studies.

We have two volumes in Bloomsbury's Classical Receptions in Twentieth-Century Writing series edited by Laura Jansen, namely, Derek Walcott and the Creation of a Classical Caribbean by Justine McConnell, and J. R. R. Tolkien's Utopianism and the Classics by Hamish Williams. Both texts have three main chapters to which is devoted one aspect of the author's reception of the classical world. In the former, McConnell identifies three recurring approaches or processes in Walcott's creation of a ‘classical Caribbean’, often drawing on postcolonial theory. These are: non-linear or non-colonial temporalities (explored under the heading ‘Time’), ‘Syncretism’, and ‘Re-creation’. At the same time, McConnell not only analyses the St. Lucian author's relationship to classical culture and education, but situates his work within that of other Caribbean writers. McConnell paints a cohesive picture of Walcott's (self-)positioning in these entanglements of times, places, and traditions, and makes a number of useful observations about classical reception more broadly.

Over the last few years, much of public discourse has been concerned with the rise of populist movements across the world. Hindu nationalism, Brexit, and the rise of Le Pen are just some of the phenomena that have garnered attention and concern. Although, in Rome and America, classicist and political scientist Dean Hammer does not start with this topic, contemporary populism is his destination, specifically in the shape of Donald Trump and the conditions in which his presidency arose. As Hammer investigates several aspects of both the creation and undoing of self-identity and political norms in the United States, he cites templates, points of comparison, and, finally, warnings in both Rome's founding myths and the history of its transition from republic to principate.

In this issue, we have several monographs with wildly differing approaches and interests, from a tight focus on single writers’ engagement with antiquity to studies that synthesize varied materials from multiple centuries and countries. While many of them display a deep interest in the relationship between text and image, another shared theme is the nuances and tensions inherent in literary expressions of political ideology.

This issue sees five volumes from IMAGINES – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts. This series, published by Bloomsbury and edited by Filippo Carlà-Uhink and Martin Lindner, developed from a series of conferences starting in 2007, and has so far produced fourteen books, including both edited volumes and monographs. In keeping with the editors’ aims to work from an anti-hierarchal approach to culture, the books under discussion elaborate on a range of media, without distinguishing between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture.

While this issue's selection of books on classical reception is diverse in subject area and methodology, one theme they all share is a focus on place and space. The Classics in South America by Germán Campos Muñoz and Time and Antiquity in American Empire by Mark Storey are particularly focused on Classics and the spatiality of empire. South America's location beyond the extent of the world known to the Roman Empire provided an interesting point of departure for the classically inclined inhabitants of the continent as they considered continuities and disjunctures with the time and space of classical antiquity. Campos Muñoz's second and third case studies discuss an array of material and literary evidence in examining how both colonial and anti-imperial activities were framed with respect to ancient history and epic. We see how a sixteenth-century Spanish nobleman celebrated becoming Viceroy of Peru in a procession through a triumphal arch adorned with Latin hexameter and classical motifs. Similarly, Simón Bolívar, the revolutionary and subject of classical odes celebrating his liberation of South American territories, enjoyed classicizing triumphs and parades (140). These contrasting case studies show the ongoing significance of the Roman Empire to South America, even as its imperial status changed dramatically.