Experiencing Immersion in Antiquity and Modernity: From Narrative to Virtual Reality

(Hardback)

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Our current obsession with immersive experiences are replete with classical literature and culture. Virtual technologies in the world of video games, modern theatrical performances and contemporary artwork all draw on the ancient world as a source of inspiration. Yet the idea of immersion is not a new phenomenon; paintings, sculpture and theatre have all been theorised historically in terms of illusion, realism and immersion. This book explores the connection between both immersive experiences in ancient literature and culture, and immersive classical receptions in modernity.

Textual critics in antiquity theorised literatures ability to create the sensation that a reader or listener was present at the event being described. Instances of narrative facilitating studied by ancient poets and philosophers are found as far back as the Homeric epics, the Socratic dialogues and Aristotelian texts. Studying the cross-pollination of these ancient texts and ideas with modern immersivity, the chapters draw in an interdisciplinary range of disciplines such as classical reception, art history, games studies, heritage studies and theatre studies. This book consequently highlights hitherto unforeseen connections across disciplines, and paves the way for future research into, and the creation of, classically-inflected immersive experiences.

Author Bio

Emma Cole is Senior Lecturer in Liberal Arts and Classics at the University of Bristol, UK. She is a classicist and a theatre and performance studies scholar. She is the author of Postdramatic Tragedies (2019) and the co-editor of Adapting Translation for the Stage (2017).