Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity : : Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity / / Simon Goldhill.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Goldhill, Simon,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2011]; ©2011
• Year of Publication: 2011
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Series: Martin Classical Lectures ; 29
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (360 p.) :; 16 color illus. 32 halftones.

How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity is a brilliant exploration of how the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, Simon Goldhill examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, Goldhill demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, Goldhill addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction--specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire--he discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- INTRODUCTION. Discipline and Revolution: Classics in Victorian Culture -- PART 1. ART AND DESIRE -- CHAPTER ONE. The Art of Reception: J. W. Waterhouse and the Painting of Desire in Victorian Britain -- CHAPTER TWO. The Touch of Sappho -- PART 2. MUSIC AND CULTURAL POLITICS -- CHAPTER THREE. Who Killed Chevalier Gluck? -- CHAPTER FOUR. Wagner's Greeks: The Politics of Hellenism -- PART 3. FICTION: VICTORIAN NOVELS OF ANCIENT ROME -- CHAPTER FIVE. For God and Empire -- CHAPTER SIX. Virgins, Lions, and Honest Pluck -- SEVEN. Only Connect! -- CODA -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index