KYKNOS is a research hub based in Swansea, dedicated to studying the narrative literatures of ancient Greece, Rome, Egypt, and the Near East. It fosters international collaboration with scholars, particularly in Ghent, and across Europe, the UK, and the USA. KYKNOS organises seminars, conferences, workshops, and reading groups, while facilitating research publications. It welcomes scholars at all levels, having hosted visiting researchers from institutions in Tokyo, Ghent, Lausanne, and beyond.

The focus of KYKNOS is on ancient narratives—both fictional and historical—spanning genres like historiography, epic poetry, and novels, as well as narrative elements in non-narrative genres like Greek tragedy and Platonic dialogue. Additionally, it explores the reception of ancient narratives in modern culture.

Projects

Water in the Ancient Novel

KYKNOS is organising a panel on water in the ancient novel at the annual Celtic Conference in Classics (Cardiff, July 2024). The focus will range from the representation of water as a physical element to how water can function as a literary device.

The central research questions which the panel aims to answer are:

  • What do these texts suggest about water as a physical element of the natural environment in the world of ancient novels?
  • How does water act as a metaliterary device in the novels?
  • Why is water used so prominently in similes and metaphors within the novels?
  • What are the implications of the intertextuality activated in the representations of water?
  • How does water function in relation to the divine sphere in the texts?
  • What does the depiction of water suggest about natural and artificial boundaries?

 

Apuleius Metamorphoses and the Greek Novel

People

Director

Dr Ian Repath's research is focused on a variety of aspects of how ancient authors created fictional stories, constructing imaginative and literary worlds to entertain, stimulate, and challenge their readers. Dr Repath is currently working on a number of projects, the core of which is an investigation into how the ancient Greek novelists exploit their readers’ knowledge of other texts, and how they reflect on the nature of their own creations.

Dr Ian Repath
Dr Ian Repath

Academic Publications

students in library

PhD students that have participated in KYKNOS:

students in library
PhD Student  Topic Title

Mat Davies

‘Philoi: Achilles, Hector, Odysseus and the Community in Homeric Epics’

Pam Dennis    

‘Marriage in the second-century Greek ‘ideal’ novels’

Bella Winton

‘The Holy Woman of Late Antiquity: Divine or Demonic? Early Christian Literature in Greek as Sophisticated Literary Narratives’