Not cricket, not classics? A case study in the limits of reception

Abstract

This article offers a reading of the coverage of the 2013–14 Ashes series by way of exploring the limits of classical reception. Focusing on the poetics of recusal (recusatio, praetritio) and their place in advertising memory sanctions as site of contested power, I suggest that although the coverage lacks explicit reference to classical material, it nevertheless can be read as classical by analogy, and as such ought to be treated as a case of classical reception.