‘Newly unfrozen senses and imagination’

2021 ◽  
pp. 201-218
Author(s):  
Kelvin Everest
Keyword(s):  
Dramatic Structure ◽  
English Society

When Shelley arrived in Italy in spring 1818, his first sustained literary endeavour was a translation of Plato’s Symposium. The translation is a brilliant achievement: it testifies to Shelley’s genius as a translator (Euripides, Homer, Goethe, Calderón). Shelley’s decision to translate was motivated by a desire to demonstrate for Mary (who could not read Greek) the true character of Athenian culture, with its emphasis on homosexuality. The Platonic ideas are also of significance in the context of Shelley’s experience of English society in the period leading up to his departure for Italy. His overt and published radicalism, sexual libertarianism, and atheism had cost him custody of his children, and the need to mute his views is demonstrated in his recognition that the Symposium translation could not legally be published in England. Its dramatic structure also points to new dimensions in the mature Italian work which immediately followed the translation.

Unclean Truth

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Talbot
Keyword(s):  
Human Remains ◽  
Liminal Space ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
Victorian Era ◽  
Museum Exhibits ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Object Biography ◽  
Physical Form ◽  
English Society ◽  
Physical Objects

The Metropolitan Police’s Crime Museum, famously known as the Black Museum, exhibits evidence from some of the most appalling crimes committed within English society from the late-Victorian era into modernity. Public admittance to this museum is strictly prohibited, preventing all but police staff from viewing the macabre exhibitions held within. The physical objects on display may vary, but whether the viewer is confronted with household items, weaponry or human remains, the evidence before them is undeniably associated with the immorality surrounding the performance of a socially bad death, of murder. These items have an object biography, they are both contextualized and contextualize the environment in which they reside. But one must question the purpose of such a museum, does it merely act as a Chamber of Horrors evoking the anomie of English society in physical form, or do these exhibits have an educational intent, restricted to their liminal space inside New Scotland Yard, to be used as a pedagogical tool in the development of new methods of murder investigation.

Gender, Class and a Naming Process in the English Long Eighteenth Century: Leicestershire c. 1680-1836

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-68
Author(s):  
Dave Postles
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
English Society ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

During the 'long eighteenth century', a novel practice of naming was introduced into England which had a long precedent in some parts of continental Europe. Associated at first with aristocratic status, two 'forenames' were selectively adopted at various levels of English society. How that process occurred is illustrated here through a selective sample of Leicestershire parishes as it varied by the intersections of gender and class.

The Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 1000 - 1250

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Coss
Keyword(s):  
Time Frame ◽  
Grand Narrative ◽  
English History ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Italian Experience ◽  
English Society ◽  
History Of ◽  
External Stimuli ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Interpretative Framework

Part I of this book is an in-depth examination of the characteristics of the Tuscan aristocracy across the first two and a half centuries of the second millennium, as studied by Italian historians and others working within the Italian tradition: their origins, interests, strategies for survival and exercise of power; the structure and the several levels of aristocracy and how these interrelated; the internal dynamics and perceptions that governed aristocratic life; and the relationship to non-aristocratic sectors of society. It will look at how aristocratic society changed across this period and how far changes were internally generated as opposed to responses from external stimuli. The relationship between the aristocracy and public authority will also be examined. Part II of the book deals with England. The aim here is not a comparative study but to bring insights drawn from Tuscan history and Tuscan historiography into play in understanding the evolution of English society from around the year 1000 to around 1250. This part of the book draws on the breadth of English historiography but is also guided by the Italian experience. The book challenges the interpretative framework within which much English history of this period tends to be written—that is to say the grand narrative which revolves around Magna Carta and English exceptionalism—and seeks to avoid dangers of teleology, of idealism, and of essentialism. By offering a study of the aristocracy across a wide time-frame and with themes drawn from Italian historiography, I hope to obviate these tendencies and to appreciate the aristocracy firmly within its own contexts.

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