Reviews
Review by: Ben Boatwright Alexander, editor of GOOD THINGS OUT OF NAZARETH, and professor of English and Political Science, Franciscan University and Hillsdale College - June 11, 2026
"This splendid volume is a needed, valuable addition to commentary on Flannery O'Connor, commentary that is too often concerned with the tired categories of race, region, gender, and the grotesque. Tracing her fiction to classical works O'Connor studied, the authors reveal dimensions of her writing that literary critics have not probed. The interdisciplinary approach of the volume connects carefully O'Connor's fiction to antiquity's increasingly distant masters such as Sophocles and Homer, as well as Plato and Aristotle."
Review by: Jerome C. Foss, author of FLANNERY O'CONNOR AND THE PERILS OF GOVERNING BY TENDERNESS - June 11, 2026
"The classical tradition laid the foundation for drama. There's no doubt that Flannery O'Connor's stories rest upon that foundation. Edmondson, Ruiz, and Thorburn have given us a book we have long needed for understanding why O'Connor is more than a hillbilly Thomist--she is also a twentieth-century Sophocles."
Review by: Farrell O'Gorman, professor of English, Belmont Abbey College, and author of PECULIAR CROSSROADS - June 11, 2026
"Scholars and educators have long needed a book on Flannery O'Connor''s engagement with the classical tradition. The authors of TWENTIETH-CENTURY SOPHOCLES extensively document that engagement as revealed in her correspondence, her personal library, and various biographical sources. O'Connor's fiction is illuminated here by close juxtaposition not only with the Oedipus cycle, but also, strikingly, with the work of Aeschylus and Euripides. Other classical sources for O'Connor's imaginative vision also receive consideration, as does her knowledge of Aristotle and modern interpreters of the classical tradition such as Josef Pieper and Eric Voegelin. This book should find its way into both classical schools and university libraries, as the range of sources and readings here offer a valuable template for further exploration of this vital topic."
Review by: John D. Sykes, Jr., professor emeritus of English and Religion, Wingate University, and author of FLANNERY O'CONNOR, WALKER PERCY, AND THE AESTHETIC OF REVELATION - June 11, 2026
"This book fills an unlikely lacuna in O'Connor scholarship: O'Connor's debt to the classical tradition of Greece and Rome. Serious readers of O'Connor are aware of her long friendship with Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, and commentary on WISE BLOOD frequently mentions that she found the resolution for the plot of her first novel after reading Fitzgerald's translations of OEDIPUS REX and OEDIPUS AT COLONUS. Yet O’Connor’s refusal to pretend to a classical education and her success in capturing Bible Belt religiosity have hidden her deep respect for classical sources. This volume uncovers this important influence with careful close readings of primary sources and a thorough review of neglected biographical and textual material."