Denis Feeney

Denis C. Feeney ( born October 16, 1955) is a New Zealand Classical philologist and professor of Classics and Giger Professor of Latin at Princeton University.

Feeney received his B. A. 1974 at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. In 1982 he was at the University of Oxford with an unpublished commentary on the first book of the Punica of Silius Italicus to D.Phil. doctorate. He was a Fellow of Magdalene College (Cambridge) and New College (Oxford). In the academic year 2003/2004 he was Sather Professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

Feeney works on the interplay between Roman literature, especially poetry, and Roman religion. His monograph The Gods in Epic, a critical examination of the meaning of the " gods apparatus " in the Greek and Roman epic, is regarded as the standard work in this field. Another monograph is devoted to Roman advantages and representations of time.

Writings (selection )

• Caesar 's Calendar: Ancient Time and the Beginnings of History. California University Press, 2007 ( Sather Classical Lectures, Vol 65).
• Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs. Cambridge University Press, 1998; Italian translation: Letteratura e religione nell'antica Roma: culture, Contesti e Credenze, Traditional Claudio Salone, ed Piergiorgio Parroni. Salerno Editrice, Rome 1999.
• The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition. Oxford University Press, 1991.