Horace's 'Epistles', Wieland and the Reader: A Three-Way Relationship
Jane V. Curran
Bithell Series of Dissertations 19 / MHRA Texts and Dissertations 38•1 January 1995

Renaissance Vegetarianism: The Philosophical Afterlives of Porphyry’s On Abstinence
Cecilia Muratori
Italian Perspectives 46•28 September 2020

  • ‘The meticulously researched study of the generation and Renaissance receptions of Porphyry's On Abstinence in Cecilia Muratori's Renaissance Vegetarianism is well worth attention from Romanticists, alongside the Early Modern scholars, Classicists, and Animal Studies scholars that will comprise its main audience... Literal and figurative translations of ethical, philosophical, and dietary ideas upon vegetarianism and veganism connect ancient and Early Modern thought in Muratori's admirable study, with glimpses of Thomas Taylor and Shelley suggesting the future of Porphyry's reception in the Romantic period.’ — Amanda Blake Davis, The Coleridge Bulletin 57, Summer 2021, 141-46
  • ‘Muratori’s work provides us not only with an overview of philosophical thinking on vegetarianism from ancient authors to their reception by Renaissance but also with interesting keys to understand the issues that worried intellectuals of those times. Her analysis gives the main clues of the reception of Porphyry’s work and shows how crucial it was for the evolution of vegetarian thinking that is still strongly present in our days. The rigor of the research and the excellent way the contents are presented with a simple but accurate drafting make this work accessible and fascinating for scholars as well for curious readers.’ — Monica Durán Mañas, Mediterranea 7, 2022 (full text online)
  • ‘The most celebrated work on animals to emerge from ancient philosophy, Porphyry’s On Abstinence from Killing Animals, argues at length against the Stoics that animals have reason or “inner logos,” in part on the basis of their behavior but also on the basis of the claim that some animals can understand and produce language, or “outer logos.” And this was one of those texts that really was recovered and read avidly in the Renaissance. Just how avidly, and with what consequences, is shown by Cecilia Muratori’s Renaissance Vegetarianism, a wide-ranging, fascinating, and frequently entertaining survey of ideas about animals in this period.’ — Peter Adamson, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie Published online, 2023 (full text online)
  • ‘To add to the many merits of Muratori’s accomplishment, the book includes a bibliography that is comprehensive as well as carefully selected. The index of names and subjects is thorough and extremely helpful. The many philosophical discussions never read stiltedly and are always recounted in a thought-provoking and engaging style. Above all, this tour de force on the history of vegetarianism makes the reader reflect on a central question that remains unanswered to this day: can a being that is sentient and rational be legitimately consumed and turned into food?’ — E. Giada Capasso, Modern Language Review 118.3, July 2023, 403-05 (full text online)

Silent Witness: Racine's Non-Verbal Annotations of Euripides
Susanna Phillippo
Research Monographs in French Studies 14•1 June 2003

  • ‘Phillippo ... is to be congratulated on finding interest in such apparently unpromising markings and on giving them voice. Indeed, her book is a triumph of sober scholarship and critical imagination.’ — Michael Hawcroft, French Studies LVIII.3, 2004, 408-9
  • ‘Source criticism seems to have caught a second wind lately ... Silent Witness represents an enlightened form of this methodological approach, giving an inside view of Racine's creative process that allows us to look over his shoulder in the atelier d'artiste.’ — Ronald W. Tobin, L'Esprit Créateur Vol. XLIV, n. 2, Summer 2004, 97-8
  • ‘This book has been painstakingly researched and set out in a manner to facilitate the reader's understanding of the detailed argument based on close reading of the French and Greek texts.’ — Rosemary Arnoux, New Zealand Journal of French Studies 25/1, 2004, 61-2
  • ‘It is true that we will never know why Racine marked certain passages, and that we can also argue for the influence of text that is unmarked. The study of sources will necessarily often belong to the domain of informed speculation. But if we accept that literary criticism deals more in persuasion than in certainties, we will be more sympathetic to this well-judged attempt to look at an old question in what is an original, clear-headed, and stimulating way.’ — John Campbell, Modern Language Review 100.2, April 2005, 500-01 (full text online)
  • ‘For anyone interested in Euripides and his influence, the research and the argument here presented offer much to tantalize.’ — Clara Shaw Hardy, The Classical Bulletin 81.1, 2005, 98-100
  • ‘Phillippo's conclusions remain firmly within the limits of what can reasonably be deduced from the evidence and the complete listing in an appendix of Racine's non-verbal annotations allow the sceptic to check against the original Euripidean text. This book has added an important element to the study of Racine's work.’ — Mark Bannister, International Journal of the Classical Tradition Fall 2004, 312-13

The Philomena of Chrétien the Jew: The Semiotics of Evil
Peter Haidu, edited by Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
Research Monographs in French Studies 59•28 September 2020

Aeneas Takes the Metro: The Presence of Virgil in Twentieth-Century French Literature
Fiona Cox
Studies In Comparative Literature 3•1 July 1999

  • unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 37.3, 2001, 341
  • ‘Affirms that Virgil's 'flexibility and openness to reception' has ensured his continuing relevance for writers of widely differing persuasions.’ — Julian Cowley, The Year's Work in English Studies 80, 2002, 615
  • ‘The fine chapters on Pierre Klossowski's controversial Aeneid translation and on the nouveau roman constitute in their grouping a genuine contribution to our understanding of Virgil's postwar reception... the coherence of traditional heroic and imperialistic readings gives way to a postmodern view of Aeneas as exile.’ — Theodore Ziolkowski, French Studies LV.2, 2001, 269-70
  • ‘Wide-ranging and illuminating... In sum, Aeneas Takes The Metro illustrates, if proof were needed, the ability of a well-informed and scholarly comparative study to transcend linguistic, formal and temporal barriers successfully and productively.’ — Kiera Vaclavik, New Comparison 31, 2002, 202-3

Neither a Borrower: Forging Traditions in French, Chinese and Arabic Poetry
Richard Serrano
Studies In Comparative Literature 7•1 May 2002

  • ‘A book which illustrates the xing (a kind of evocation or opening stimulus) in Serrano's densely interesting and polysemic introduction.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies XL.2, April 2004, 238

Comparative Encounters between Artaud, Michaux and the Zhuangzi: Rationality, Cosmology and Ethics
Xiaofan Amy Li
Transcript 4•1 July 2015

  • ‘This intelligent book raises important issues about comparative literature at its most challenging... All three thinkers are concerned with expression and performativity rather than with self-justification. The justification of this three-part comparison is clearly in the fluidity of thinking and its non-limitation.’ — Mary Ann Caws, French Studies 70.2, April 2016, 278-79
  • ‘The philosophical, rather than literary approach undertaken here offers valuable and well-founded insights into enduring modes of thought and existence.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 52.4, October 2016, 473-74