Dr Donncha O'Rourke (BA, PhD)

Senior Lecturer; Classics

Biography

Background

I am a native of Dublin and graduate of Trinity College, where I was lucky enough to study Classics as an undergraduate before going on to write my doctoral thesis on Virgilian intertextuality in Propertius 4. Interim lectureships at TCD and NUI Maynooth were followed by a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 2010, and this in turn by my current post here at Edinburgh. 

Undergraduate teaching

I offer (or teach on) the following courses:

Pre-Honours

  • Latin 1a & 1b
  • Latin 1c/2a ex-beginners
  • Latin 1d
  • Roman World 1a & 1b

 

Honours

  • Latin 1Ha & 1Hb
  • Latin Language A & B
  • Amor & Roma: Latin love-elegy
  • Latin Satire
  • Roman Satire 
  • Ancient Didactic Poetry

Postgraduate teaching

MSc

  • Latin Text Seminar (Lucretius) 
  • Elementary Latin (PG) 1
  • Skills and Methods in Classics 

Current PhD students supervised

Name - Degree - Thesis topic - Supervision type - Link

  • Leotta, Roberta - PhD -       - Primary -
  • Barsani, Beatrice - PhD - The colours of God: Polychromatic imagery for the divine in late antique Latin poetry - Secondary -
  • Panou, Yolanda - PhD -      - Primary -

  • Trachtenberg, David - PhD - Primary -

Past PhD students supervised

Name - Degree - Thesis topic - Supervision type - Link

  • Cassidy, Sarah - PhD - 'A commentary on Apollonius Rhodius' Argonautica, 4.1537 - End' - Primary - link
  • Vos, Gary - PhD - The Shepherd of Divine Song: Linus and the Literary Tradition - Primary - link
  • Mariamne Briggs - PhD - The Middle Irish Translation of Statius' Thebaid: A Study in Reception - Secondary
  • Longley-Cook, Dorothy - PhD - A City of Marbe, A City of Song: Roman Monuments and the Poetics of Space in Ovidian Poetry - Primary -
  • Tsakiris, Manos - PhD - Epic in Uncharted Waters: The Genres of Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica - Secondary -
  • DeBlois, Celeste - PhD - Carmina magica: Reading Magic and Ritual in Latin Love Elegy - Primary -

Research summary

Places: 

  • Europe
  • Mediterranean

Themes: 

  • Ancient Civilisations
  • Gender
  • Language & Literature

Periods: 

  • Antiquity

Research interests

My research focuses primarily on Latin poetry of the first century BC, and especially on Roman elegiac and didactic poetry. A further strand of my research relates to Hellenistic poetry, especially as received at Rome.

More generally, I am interested in allusion and intertextuality, formal design in ancient poetry-books, genre, and gender-related issues in Roman poetry; work on Lucretius-reception in elegy has also prompted me to think more broadly about philosophical subtexts in literary texts.

Project activity

A monograph entitled Propertius and the Virgilian Sensibility, on the reception of Virgil in Propertius Book 4, is forthcoming with CUP. I am also currently writing a commentary on Lucretius, De Rerum Natura 1, and a book on akrasia in Roman elegy, arising from my 2021-22 Leverhulme Research Fellowship and 2022 Stanford Lecture Series at Trinity College Dublin. 

Research projects

In 2021-22 I held a Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust for a project entitled 'Erring willingly: agency, akrasia and free will in Roman elegy'. I had the opportunity to air this work at the 2022 W.B. Stanford Memorial Lecture Series at Trinity College Dublin, and it will be published by CUP under the auspices of that series in due course. 

Previously I organised conferences at Edinburgh on ‘Lucretius in Theory: literary-critical approaches to the De rerum natura’ and (with Dr Lilah-Grace Canevaro) 'Didactic Poerty: Tradition and Traditions'. The proceedings of both conferences have since been published.  

Conference details

O'Rourke, D. (2020) Elegies for Ireland: W.B. Yeats, Michael Longley and the Roman elegists. In: Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016. Oxford University Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198864486.001.0001

The list below is a subset of the information held on the University of Edinburgh PURE system, and includes Books, Chapters, Articles and Conference contributions. For a full list, including details of other publication types (e.g. reviews), please see the Edinburgh Research Explorer page for Dr Donncha O'Rourke.

Books - Edited

Torrance, I. and O'Rourke, D. (eds.) (2020) Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016. Oxford: Oxford University Press

O'Rourke, D. (ed.) (2020) Approaches to Lucretius: Traditions and Innovations in Reading the De Rerum Natura. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108379854

Canevaro, L. and O'Rourke, D. (eds.) (2019) Didactic Poetry of Greece, Rome and Beyond: Knowledge, Power, Tradition. Swansea: Classical Press of WalesDOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvd58tb5

Articles

O'Rourke, D. (2017) Hospitality narratives in Virgil and Callimachus: The ideology of reception. The Cambridge Classical Journal, 63, pp. 118-142DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1750270517000057

O'Rourke, D. (2014) Lovers in Arms: Empedoclean Love and Strife in Lucretius and the Elegists. Dictynna, 11, pp. 2

O'Rourke, D. (2011) 'Eastern' Elegy and 'Western' Epic: reading 'orientalism' in Propertius 4 and Virgil's Aeneid. Dictynna, pp. 2-23

O'Rourke, D. (2011) The representation and misrepresentation of Virgilian poetry in Propertius 2.34. American Journal of Philology, 132(3), pp. 457-497DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/ajp.2011.0030

O'Rourke, D. (2010) Maxima Roma in Propertius, Virgil, and Gallus. The Classical Quarterly, pp. 470-485

Chapters

O'Rourke, D. (2021) Akrasia and agency in Ovid's Tristia. In: Williams, G. and Volk, K. (eds.) Philosophy in Ovid, Ovid as Philosopher. Oxford University Press, pp. 267-286DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197610336.003.0014

O'Rourke, D. (2021) Reading the Flood in Latin Literature: Literary and cosmic symbolism. In: Cairns, F. (ed.) Papers of the Langford Latin Seminar 18: Roman Poetry, Republican and Imperial. Francis Cairns Publications Ltd, pp. 121-152

Torrance, I. and O'Rourke, D. (2020) Classics and Irish Politics: Introduction. In: Torrance, I. and O'Rourke, D. (eds.) Classics and Irish Politics, 1916-2016. Oxford University Press, pp. 1-23

O'Rourke, D. (2020) Infinity, enclosure and false closure in Lucretius' De Rerum Natura. In: O'Rourke, D. (ed.) Approaches to Lucretius: Traditions and Innovations in Reading the De Rerum Natura. Cambridge University Press, pp. 103-123DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108379854.007

O'Rourke, D. (2020) Introduction: Approaching Lucretius. In: O'Rourke, D. (ed.) Approaches to Lucretius: Traditions and Innovations in Reading the De Rerum Natura. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-16DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108379854.002

Canevaro, L. and O'Rourke, D. (2019) Introduction. In: Canevaro, L. and O'Rourke, D. (eds.) Didactic Poetry of Greece, Rome and Beyond: Knowledge, Power, Tradition. Classical Press of Wales, pp. 1-20DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvd58tb5.3

O'Rourke, D. (2019) Knowledge is power: Dynamics of (dis)empowerment in didactic poetry. In: Canevaro, L. and O'Rourke, D. (eds.) Didactic Poetry of Greece, Rome and Beyond: Knowledge, Power, Tradition. Classical Press of Wales, pp. 21-52DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvd58tb5.4

O'Rourke, D. (2018) Make war not love: Militia amoris and domestic violence in Roman elegy. In: Gale, M. and Scourfield, J. (eds.) Texts and Violence in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 110-139DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781139225304

O'Rourke, D. (2018) Authorial surrogates in Grattius' Cynegetica. In: Green, S. (ed.) Grattius: Hunting an Augustan Poet. Oxford University Press, pp. 193-211DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198789017.003.0010

O'Rourke, D. (2016) The madness of elegy: Rationalizing Propertius. In: Hardie, P. (ed.) Augustan Poetry and the Irrational. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 199-217DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198724728.001.0001

O'Rourke, D. (2013) Paratext and Intertext in the Propertian Poetry Book. In: The Roman Paratext: Frame, Texts, Readers. Cambridge University Press, pp. 156-175

O'Rourke, D. (2012) Intertextuality in Roman elegy. In: Gold, B. (ed.) A Companion to Roman Love Elegy. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 390-409DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118241165.ch24

This article was published on