The Victorians And Ancient Greece

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.

Heretical Hellenism examines sources such as theater history and popular journals to uncover the ways women acquired knowledge of Greek literature, history, and philosophy and challenged traditional humanist assumptions about the uniformity of classical knowledge and about women's place in literary history.

An important new study that seeks to establish what Victorian writers said about Greek culture and how their interpretations both molded and reflected the attitudes and values of the Victorian age. "Turner's readable, intelligent, thorough, witty, and magisterial book discovers and narrates a fundamental strain in British intellectual life from the late eighteenth century until the beginning of World War I. It is THE book on its subject. . . . Turner's study has changed, changed utterly, the Victorian landscape."-Richard Tobias, Victorian Poetry

Oscar Wilde's imagination was haunted by ancient Greece; this book traces its presence in his life and works.

An examination of how the Roman past was perceived, and used, by Victorian Britain.

Discover the Earth's most explosive volcanoes and what it's like to experience an earthquake feels like in this picture-led guide to the hotspots of the world This book tells you everything you need to know about the Earth's most extraordinary natural forces - from active volcanoes, including Kilanea in Hawaii and Etna in Italy, to devastating earthquakes that have hit San Francisco and Japan. Discover how the eruption of Mount Vesuvius devastated the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, but left in its wake remarkably preserved treasures. Find out, too, how dogs can search for survivors in the aftermath of a huge quake. Eyewitness Volcano and Earthquake explores how tectonic plates collide, what causes magma to escape from deep inside Earth and why eruptions affect our weather. Learn how scientists predict and measure the magnitude of earthquakes, and find out what a volcanologist does. Packed with striking full-colour photographs and illustrations of lava flows, pyroclastic clouds, rocks and precious stones, preserved bodies and petrified objects, and much more along with amazing facts, infographics, statistics, and a timeline to reveal the most devastating volcanoes and earthquakes in history. Part of DK's best-selling Eyewitness series, which is now getting an exciting makeover, this popular title has been reinvigorated for the next generation of information-seekers, with a fresh new look, new photographs, updated information, and a new "eyewitness" feature - fascinating first-hand accounts from experts in the field.

Any list of the six greatest European poets would include Virgil, Aeschylus and Homer. A recent history of philosophy named Aristotle and Plato as two of the world's four greatest philosophers. The greatest historian of all is likely to be Thucydides. Why was Ancient Greek and Roman literature so great? Sweeping across a thousand years, acclaimed professor Richard Jenkyns provides a lucid and lively introduction to the foundation of all Western literature. As Jenkyns shows us, the Greeks were masters of invention - they pioneered nearly all the major literary forms, including epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, and history. The Romans, like us, already felt in the shadow of Greek literature, and, as Jenkyn puts it, they first invented imitation. In short, engaging chapters, Jenkyns illuminates the most enduring and influential works of the classical world, from the Homeric epics to the golden age of Latin poetry, and explores their unparalleled and continuing influence on Western literature.