Heretical Hellenism: Women Writers, Ancient Greece, and the Victorian Popular ImaginationThe prevailing assumption regarding the Victorians' relationship to ancient Greece is that Greek knowledge constituted an exclusive discourse within elite male domains. Heretical Hellenism: Women Writers, Ancient Greece, and the Victorian Popular Imagination challenges that theory and argues that while the information women received from popular sources was fragmentary and often fostered intellectual insecurities, it was precisely the ineffability of the Greek world refracted through popular sources and reconceived through new fields of study that appealed to women writers' imaginations. Examining underconsidered sources such as theater history and popular journals, Shanyn Fiske uncovers the many ways that women acquired knowledge of Greek literature, history, and philosophy without formal classical training. Through discussions of women writers such as Charlotte Brontė, George Eliot, and Jane Harrison, Heretical Hellenism demonstrates that women established the foundations of a heretical challenge to traditional humanist assumptions about the uniformity of classical knowledge and about women's place in literary history. Heretical Hellenism provides a historical rationale for a more expansive definition of classical knowledge and offers an interdisciplinary method for understanding the place of classics both in the nineteenth century and in our own time. |
Contents
Victorian Medea | 24 |
Fragments of Genius | 64 |
Heretical Humanism | 112 |
The Daimon Archives | 149 |
Afterword | 189 |
Notes | 199 |
237 | |
259 | |
Common terms and phrases
Aeschylus ancient appearance argued audience authority become Blackwood’s Brontė Cambridge century character Charlotte Charlotte’s Christian classical concept continuity contrast criticism culture debate desire discussion elements Eliot emotional emphasizes essay Euripides experience expression fact feel field force George Greece Greek tragedy Harrison Heger Hellenism Homer human ideal ideas images imagination important individual institutional intellectual interest interpretation Italy James Jane Harrison John knowledge language later learning legacy letter literary literature living London means Medea mind moral murder Murray myth narrative nature nineteenth century notes novel original Oxford passion past play poem poet popular present Press question reader religion Review Romola scholar scholarship seems sense social spiritual stage suggests texts things thought tion Tito Tito’s tradition translation unity University University Press values Victorian woman women writing wrote York