Reception Studies and Cultural Reinvention in Aristophanes and Tawfiq Al-Hakim

Ramus ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 138-161
Author(s):  
Sarah Nooter
Keyword(s):  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cultural Reinvention

We look on the totality of the past as dreams, certainly interesting ones, and regard only the latest state of science as true, and that only provisionally so. This is culture.Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?Reception studies in classics live a complicated scholarly life. On one hand, a healthy collection of new monographs appears on the market every year that shows the strength of this subfield, including such recent additions as Gonda Van Steen's Theatre of the Condemned: Classical Tragedy on Greek Prison Islands and Simon Goldhil's work on the Victorian reception of classics called Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction and the Proclamation of Modernity. Collections of essays that contribute to the field are also copiously produced. Thus two scholars could lately declare that ‘[n]o sub-field in the discipline of Classics has experienced such growth, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, over the past fifteen years or so as the study of reception of classical material’. Charles Martindale, credited with throwing down the receptive gauntlet some twenty years ago, recently wrote an essay on the flourishing state of this subfield within classics, reporting that reception studies have proven classics to be not ‘something fixed, whose boundaries can be shown.’ He adds the following:Many classicists (though by no means the majority) are in consequence reasonably happy, if only to keep the discipline alive in some form, to work with an enlarged sense of what classics might be, no longer confined to the study of classical antiquity ‘in itself’—so that classics can include writing about Paradise Lost, or the mythological poesie of Titian, or the film Gladiator, or the iconography of fascism.

Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Victorian Art ◽  
Victorian Science ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Nineteenth Century Novels

How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book 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, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it 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, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.

Reviews: The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective, on the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and its Aftermath, Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics, and the Past, Postmodernism in History: Fear or Freedom?, Quoting Shakespeare: Form and Culture in Early Modern Drama, Early Modern Civil Discourses, ‘A moving Rhetoricke’: Gender and Silence in Early Modern England, Society and Culture in Early Modern England, the English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630–1660, An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657–1727, Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires, and Delectable Goods, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain, the French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805, Nationalism, Imperialism and Identity in Late Victorian Culture, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War, Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War, Manliness and the Boy's Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855–1940McCullaghC. Behan, The Logic of History: Putting Postmodernism in Perspective , Routledge, 2004, pp. viii + 212, £18.99 pbBreisachE., On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and its Aftermath , University of Chicago Press, 2003, pp. vii + 236, $16.00 pb.WilliamsL. Blakeney, Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics, and the Past , Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 265, £40.SouthgateBeverley, Postmodernism in History: Fear or Freedom? Routledge, 2003, pp. xi + 211, £55, £16.99 pb.BrusterDouglas, Quoting Shakespeare: Form and Culture in Early Modern Drama , University of Nebraska Press, 2001, pp. 288, £35.50.RichardsJennifer (ed.), Early Modern Civil Discourses , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 206, $65.00.LuckyjChristina, ‘A moving Rhetoricke‘: Gender and Silence in Early Modern England , Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. viii + 198, £40.CressyDavid, Society and Culture in Early Modern England , Variorum Collected Studies Series, Ashgate, 2003, pp. xii + 344, £57.50.McDowellNicholas, The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution, 1630–1660 , Clarendon Press, 2003, pp. x + 219, £45.BurnsWilliam E., An Age of Wonders: Prodigies, Politics and Providence in England, 1657–1727 , Manchester University Press, 2002, pp. 218, £45.BergMaxine and EgerElizabeth (eds), Luxury in the Eighteenth Century: Debates, Desires, and Delectable Goods , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. xii + 259, 41 plates, £55.SweetRosemary, Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth-Century Britain , Hambledon & London, 2004, pp. xxi + 473, £25.TaylorGeorge, The French Revolution and the London Stage, 1789–1805 , Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. x + 263, £45.AttridgeSteve, Nationalism, Imperialism and Identity in Late Victorian Culture , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. 229, £45.ColeSarah, Modernism, Male Friendship and the First World War , Cambridge University Press, 2003, pp. 297, £40FrantzenAllen J., Bloody Good: Chivalry, Sacrifice, and the Great War , University of Chicago Press, 2004, pp. 335, £24.50.BoydKelly, Manliness and the Boy's Story Paper in Britain: A Cultural History, 1855–1940 , Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, pp. x + 273, £60.

2005 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-100
Author(s):  
Christopher Parker ◽  
David Watson ◽  
Alan Armstrong ◽  
Ben Lowe ◽  
Carrie Hintz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Modern Drama ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Past ◽  
The First World War

Discipline and Revolution: Classics in Victorian Culture

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Victorian Britain ◽  
Major Revision ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Nineteenth Century Studies

This book explores the dynamics of Classics in the nineteenth-century, focusing on art, opera, and fiction and how artworks come to stand for a self-aware statement about modernity—through the classical past. It raises new questions and new understandings in three major areas of scholarship: nineteenth-century studies, Classics, and the so-called Reception Studies. It examines the discipline of Classics and its place in Victorian culture, as well as some very strong challenges to the Classics as a story, which constitute a need for a major revision of the account. In particular, it considers the relationship between Classics and sexuality. It also discusses the most important revolution of the nineteenth century, and how this affects our understanding of a discipline as a discipline: the loss of the dominant place of Christianity in Victorian Britain.

Embodied Antiquity

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-226
Author(s):  
James Uden
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Mary Shelley ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Emotional Connection ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Past ◽  
Verse Drama ◽  
The Last Man

The final chapter of the book turns to the nexus between classical antiquity, Romanticism, and the Gothic, as it is reflected in the writings of Mary Shelley. “Reanimation” has been frequently identified as a consistent trope in Shelley’s work. This chapter argues, by contrast, that Shelley repeatedly creates fantastic scenarios in which ancient and modern times meet, and modernity is revealed to be weak or insufficient when faced with the strength and vitality of the ancient world. The chapter turns first to Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), in which Victor Frankenstein’s efforts at creation are implicitly compared to the ancient model announced in the subtitle, and judged a grotesque failure. Then, the chapter turns to a series of texts written while Shelley was living in Italy—the short story “Valerius, the Reanimated Roman,” her novella Mathilda, and her verse drama Proserpine—each of which dramatizes the unsatisfying and disappointed search for emotional connection with characters from antiquity. Finally, the chapter turns to Shelley’s end-of-days novel The Last Man (1826). This novel’s many allusions to Rome and antiquity reinforce the gulf that separates an idealized antiquity from a doomed, weakening present. Shelley’s writings vividly demonstrate the seductive pleasures of engaging with ideas from antiquity, but ultimately she expresses little hope that we can truly connect with the frightening giants of the past.

‘An oasis of freedom’ in communist Poland: The horse racetrack in Warsaw in the memory of its regular visitors

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1200-1218
Author(s):  
Barbara Bossak-Herbst ◽  
Małgorzata Głowacka-Grajper
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Elderly Men ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday Reality

In this article the memory narrations of regular visitors to the Służewiec Racetrack in Warsaw are analysed. This, the only one long-term operating horse racetrack in communist Poland, was an enclave within public space, called by racegoers, who are predominantly elderly men, an ‘oasis of freedom’ – distant from the everyday reality and the rules of the official socialist ideology. The intricacies of the memory of regular racegoers are considered in reference to a broader discussion on the phenomenon of ‘post-communist nostalgia’. The nostalgic narrations are not only connected with communism but also with the imaginations of inter-war period’s horseracing. The authors show that contemporary interpretations of the horseracing world in communist Poland in terms of a ‘paradise lost’ expresses not positive assessing of the past but rather the criticism of post-communist times, when Polish horseracing has impoverished. Although the betting pools are now low, the ritualized gambling, practiced within the space of the Warsaw racetrack, seems to restore among the regular racegoers a sense of being in contact with that past better world.

One Hundred and Fifty Years of Teubner Texts

1961 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-171
Author(s):  
Bruno Doer
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Publishing Firm ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Look Back ◽  
The Future ◽  
Do So ◽  
A Share

It is always agreeable to offer congratulations to someone who is celebrating a jubilee. It is a particular pleasure to do so when the ‘child’ whose birthday it is can look back over 150 years of existence, and all those who have a share in the jubilee may reflect that the thanks for the achievements of the past and wishes for the future serve the cause of publicity. For no one who sets out to discuss the state of classical studies in Germany can, or should, fail to mention the Leipzig publishing firm of B. G. Teubner. Here publishing and scholarship have in the past century and a half formed an indissoluble partnership which has made it its duty to provide the best texts for use in the study of classical antiquity.

The Classical Tradition

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Kallendorf
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Reception Studies ◽  
The Past ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Past Generation ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Renaissance Studies

Even the word “Renaissance” (“rebirth” in French) points to the effort to revive the learning of antiquity that motivated the intellectual elite of that era—for what sprang forth was an urgent awareness of the ancient past, prompting innovations in both ideas and the arts. The classical tradition, accordingly, has long played a central role in Renaissance studies. With the growing interest in nonelite cultures, the classical tradition in what is now sometimes called the early modern period has had to share the scholarly stage with an ever-increasing number of other areas of inquiry, but the recent burst of activity in reception studies has given the classical heritage a new lease on life along with a way to engage with the more theoretical discourse that has flourished in other areas of Renaissance studies over the past generation.

Afterlife

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alice Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Literary Theory ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Ghost Story ◽  
Life After Death ◽  
The Past ◽  
Poetic Justice ◽  
Way Of Thinking

From classical antiquity onwards, writing about life after death has consistently served as a situation for questions of literary theory. The locations of the afterlife are hypotheticals and counterfactuals; they are the site of theory itself. Questions about authorship, for instance, have been articulated through the myth of Orpheus (in the forms recorded by Virgil and Ovid). The story of Orpheus tells of a poet who must go into the underworld to find the material for a tale of survivorship and loss, raising questions about the sources of creative inspiration, the art of trauma, and the suffering of the authentic artist. Dante’s imagined structures of an afterlife, in which punishments fit crimes with an apt poetic justice, have similarly been enlisted into one of the most important theoretical debates of the 20th century between formalists and historicists. The afterlife as a supplement to life’s time has also been used as a way of thinking about temporality and the implications for narrative as a literary mode that works with and through the philosophy of time. One of the most influential aspects of the literature of the afterlife to resonate in literary theory has been the ghost story. In its greatest manifestations, from Hamlet to The Turn of the Screw to Beloved, the ghost story forces its readers to acknowledge those elements of the past that refuse to be laid to rest, and it has therefore served as a vehicle for psychoanalytic questions about how processes of individual or collective memory are depicted in literary texts. In poststructuralist theory, the notion of the hauntological has also built its concepts in dialogue with earlier literary ghosts and become a way of thinking about language and its uncanny slippage between presence and absence. Subsequent critical work continued to develop hauntology into a way of understanding temporality and cultural history. Finally, the notion of prosopopoeia, or the voicing of the dead through writing, is perhaps the most far-reaching way of understanding the prevalence of dead voices as a literary trope, which reflects something of the processes of reading and writing themselves. The afterlife has therefore been a crucial source of generative metaphors for literary theory, as well as a topic and setting with an important literary history.

VICTORIAN MELODRAMA AND THE PERFORMANCE OF POVERTY

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 443-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen Leaver
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Cultural Formation ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
As If

QUESTIONSABOUT THE PERFORMATIVE NATURE of Victorian culture have received extended attention in the past decade or so as critics have begun to examine the relationship between representation and subjectivity.1 By and large, such studies have fruitfully problematized our received assumptions about the private character of the Victorians. At the same time, however, they have also implicitly privileged the middle-class frames of reference that shape the distinction, for even as they complicate our understanding of performance by calling into question the distinction between public and private modes, critics who take up such issues tend not to question the stability of the categories of experience under scrutiny. As a result, while we gain important new insights into the cultural formation of identity or genre underwritten by the separation of public and private spheres, we also risk reading all Victorians as if their relationships to such ideological formations were identical with those of the emerging middle class.

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