Overview

I am a classical scholar, literary critic and teacher with wide interests in ancient and modern literature. Since my arrival at Exeter in 1999 I have taught many different courses in Greek and Latin language and literature. I was also one of the academic team behind Exeter's Liberal Arts degree programme. For a year I taught at Vassar College, NY, an experience which opened my eyes to the intellectual and personal values associated with a liberal arts education.

My research centres mainly on the Greek and Roman theatre; I also have a strong interest in literary fragments, lost works, and ancient literary criticism and scholarship. I have published extensively on both tragedy and comedy (of all periods). At the moment most of my work centres on the so-called 'New Comedy' of Menander, Plautus and Terence.

My latest book, forthcoming from Bloomsbury in 2024, is Euripides and Quotation Culture. Other recent publications include a critical study of Menander's Samia ('The Woman from Samos') in the new Bloomsbury Ancient Comedy Companions series, and a major two-volume study of The Lost Plays of Greek Tragedy. Volume 1 (Neglected Authors) was published in 2016, and Volume 2 (Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides) appeared in 2019. If you want to learn more, you can hear me discussing my work on a recent episode of the Mirror of Antiquity podcast: to listen click here.

Other books include Selfhood and The Soul (an edited collection in honour of my colleague and friend Chris Gill), a new translation of Euripides' Ion, Helen and Orestes by Diane Arnson Svarlien, to which I contributed the introduction and notes. I am also the author of The Comedian as Critic (2012), Euripides: Orestes (2008), Euripides' Escape-Tragedies (2005), and numerous articles and reviews.

I am an active member of the Classical Association and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. At various times I have also been one of the editors of JHS, a committee member of the Council for UK Classics Departments (CUCD), a Council Member of the Hellenic Society, and a member of the editorial team of Omnibus.

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Research

Greek and Roman comedy and tragedy (of all periods)

Fragmentary and lost literature (including aesthetic and conceptual aspects)

Ancient literary criticism and scholarship

Quotation culture

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Publications

_{Copyright Notice: Any articles made available for download are for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the copyright holder.}

| 2024 | 2022 | 2020 | 2016 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 |

2024

• Wright M. (2024) Euripides and Quotation Culture, Bloomsbury.
• Wright M. (2024) Intertextuality, 'cf.' and fragmentary drama, Texts and Intertexts in Archaic and Classical Greece, Cambridge University Press.

2022

• Wright M. (2022) Comic sex and fragmentary thinking: Damoxenus fr. 3 K.-A, Classical Quarterly, DOI:10.1017/S0009838822000210. [PDF]

2020

• Wright M. (2020) How long did the lost plays of Greek tragedy survive?, Fragmentation in Ancient Greek Drama, De Gruyter, 81-101.
• Wright M. (2020) Making Medea Medea, Female Characters in Fragmentary Greek Tragedy, Cambridge University Press, 216-243.

2016

• Wright M. (2016) “Gnomic φεῦ”, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, volume 56.4, pages 585-593.
• Wright M. (2016) Myth, A Companion to Euripides, Wiley-Blackwell.
• Wright M. (2016) A Lover's Discourse: Eros in Greek Tragedy, Selfhood and the Soul, Oxford University Press.
• Wright M. (2016) The significance of numbers in Trojan Women, Wisdom and Folly in Euripides, De Gruyter, 193-205.
• Wright M. (2016) Seventeen types of ambiguity in Euripides' Helen, Truth and History in the Ancient World: Pluralizing the Past, Routledge.
• Arnson Svarlien D. (2016) Euripides: Ion, Helen, Orestes, Hackett.
• Wright M, Seaford R, Wilkins J. (2016) Selfhood and the Soul, Oxford University Press.

2013

• Wright M. (2013) Poets and poetry in later greek comedy, Classical Quarterly, volume 63, no. 2, pages 603-622, DOI:10.1017/S000983881300013X.
• Wright M. (2013) Poets and poetry in later Greek comedy, Classical Quarterly, volume 63, pages 591-610, DOI:10.1017/S000983881300013X.

2012

• Wright M. (2012) Sosia's ancestry and Plautus' predecessors, Latomus, volume 71.
• Wright M. (2012) The Comedian as Critic: Greek Old Comedy and Poetics, Bloomsbury Academic.
• Wright ME. (2012) The reception of Sophocles in antiquity, Brill's Companion to Sophocles, Brill, 581-599.
• Wright ME. (2012) 'Comedy versus tragedy in Wasps', Greek Comedy and the Discourse of Genres, Cambridge University Press, 205-225.

2011

• Wright ME. (2011) 'Myth', The Blackwell Companion to Euripides, Blackwell.

2010

• Wright M. (2010) 'The tragedian as critic: Euripides and early Greek poetics', Journal of Hellenic Studies, volume 130, pages 165-184, DOI:10.1017/S0075426910000066.

2009

• Wright M. (2009) 'Literary prizes and literary criticism in antiquity', Classical Antiquity, volume 28, pages 138-177.
• Wright M. (2009) Tragedy, Euripides and Euripideans. Selected Papers, Classical Review, volume 59, no. 2, pages 362-364, DOI:10.1017/S0009840X09000171.

2008

• Wright M. (2008) 'Enter a Phrygian (Euripides, Orestes 1369)', Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, volume 48, pages 5-13.
• Wright M. (2008) Euripides: Orestes, Duckworth.

2007

• Wright M. (2007) Comedy and the Trojan War, Classical Quarterly, volume 57, no. 2, pages 412-431, DOI:10.1017/S000983880700047X.

2006

• Wright M. (2006) Cyclops and the Euripidean tetralogy, Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, volume 51, pages 23-48.
• Wright M. (2006) Euripides. Selected fragmentary plays, vol 2, JOURNAL OF HELLENIC STUDIES, volume 126, pages 156-157, DOI:10.1017/S0075426900007795. [PDF]
• Wright M. (2006) 'POxy. 863':: A fragment of Cratinus' 'Dionysalexandros'?, CLASSICAL QUARTERLY, volume 56, no. 2, pages 593-595, DOI:10.1017/S0009838806000589. [PDF]
• Wright M. (2006) Orestes, a Euripidean sequel, The Classical Quarterly, volume 56, no. 1, pages 33-47, DOI:10.1017/S0009838806000048.

2005

• Wright M. (2005) Euripides' Escape-Tragedies: A Study of Helen, Andromeda, and Iphigenia among the Taurians, DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199274512.001.0001.
• Wright M. (2005) Euripides' Escape-Tragedies, Oxford University Press.
• Wright, M.. (2005) The joy of Sophocles’ Electra, Greece & Rome, volume 52, no. 2, pages 172-194.

2004

• Wright M. (2004) Shards from Kolonos: Shards from Kolonos: Studies in Sophoclean fragments, CLASSICAL REVIEW, volume 54, no. 2, pages 301-303, DOI:10.1093/cr/54.2.301. [PDF]
• Wright M. (2004) Poetry, theory, praxis. The social life of myth, word and image in ancient Greece. Essays in honour of William J. Slater, CLASSICAL REVIEW, volume 54, no. 2, pages 564-565, DOI:10.1093/cr/54.2.564. [PDF]

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