Dr. Francis Cairns

Professor of Classics

Research and Teaching Specializations

• Republican and Augustan Latin poetry
• Hellenistic Greek Poetry
• Medieval and renaissance Latin
• Epigraphy of Euboea, Greece
• Computer-aided learning

Background

Francis Cairns (PhD Liverpool) specializes in the study of Greek and Latin poetry, in Medieval and Renaissance Latin literature and in Greek epigraphy. He is author of Generic Composition in Greek and Roman Poetry (1972), Tibullus: a Hellenistic Poet at Rome (1979), Virgil's Augustan Epic (1989), Sextus Propertius: the Augustan Elegist (2006), Papers on Roman Elegy (2008) and of many articles on Greek and Latin poetry. He is editor of PLLS vols 1-13 (1975-2008) and joint editor of 'ARCA' and of 'Latin and Greek Texts'. His main current project is on Greek and Roman epigrams.

Links:
Publications (updated Jan. 2009)
PLLS (includes tables of contents for all issues)

Research Projects in Progress

• A study of Greek epigrams; papers on Greek and Roman poetry, medieval and renaissance Latin, and Euboean epigraphy.

Recent Publications and Lectures

• GENERIC COMPOSITION IN GREEK AND ROMAN POETRY Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1972 (viii + 331 pp.)
  Revised Edition (viii + 336 pp.) Reprinted Michigan Classical Press 2007
• TIBULLUS: A HELLENISTIC POET AT ROME. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979 (xii + 250 pp.) Reprinted in paperback Cambridge University Press 2007
• VIRGIL’S AUGUSTAN EPIC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 (xi + 280 pp.) Reprinted in paperback Cambridge University Press 2008
• SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: THE AUGUSTAN ELEGIST Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 (xvi + 492 pp.) Reprinted in paperback Cambridge University Press 2009
• PAPERS ON ROMAN ELEGY (1969-2003). (Eikasmos. Quaderni Bolognesi di Filologia Classica. Studi 16) Patròn, Bologna. 2008 (viii + 483 pp.)

• ‘The future of Classics in the United Kingdom: Change or Decline?’ in Quale futuro per gli studi classici in Europa? Atti del Convegno Sassari 28 novembre- 1 dicembre 2001 edd. M.A. Petretto and M.G. Vallebella (Quaderni di Sandalion) Sassari 2008, 63-83
• ‘The Hellenistic Epigramma Longum’ in Epigramma longum. Da Marziale alla tarda antichità / From Martial to Late Antiquity. Atti del Convegno  internazionale 29-31 maggio 2006 ed. A.M. Morelli (Edizioni dell’ Università degli Studi di Cassino. Collana scientifica 21) Cassino 2008, 55-80
• ‘Jacopo Aconcio: the Motives of an Exponent of Religious Toleration’ in Il Concetto della Libertà nel Rinascimento ed. L. Secchi Tarugi (Quaderni della Rassegna 52) Firenze 2008)
• ‘C. Asinius Pollio and the Eclogues’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society/Cambridge Classical Journal 54 (2008) 49-79
• ‘“Weak Sheep” in Horace Epode 2.16’ Antiquité Classique 77 (2008) 215-17

Recent Courses

Postgraduate supervision at M.A and Ph.D. level

Hellenistic poetry; Classical Latin; late Latin; ninth-century Latin.