Greece or Rome?: The Uses of Antiquity in Late Eighteenth‐ and Early Nineteenth‐Century British Literature

Abstract

Traditionally, literary and artistic production in late eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century Britain has been understood as constituting a modernity in opposition to classical values and aesthetic standards. In thinking about the relevance of classical antiquity in the later eighteenth and early nineteenth century, however, one prominent trend in recent scholarship has been the recognition of an increasing fascination with Greece and Greek culture. This article surveys arguments for the rise of Hellenism and its importance for thinking about the literary works of this period. In the face of claims for the dominance of the Greek example, the article further considers the legacy of Rome and explores the scholarly debate over its continued relevance in the period. Ultimately, the article suggests the need to consider the deployment of both Roman and Greek examples in framing contemporary understandings of such central aspects of modernity as democracy, popular revolt, and tyranny in a period whose political culture was dominated by reaction and anxieties about revolution.

The Reception of Ancient Greece and Rome in the Victorian Period

“…5 However, Jonathan Sachs has argued that Hellenism should not be interpreted as making Roman influences less significant, especially in political terms: "Greece is firmly associated with liberty, democracy and popular will, while Rome comes to stand for the spread of ideas and institutions through empire." 6 Victorian Hellenism was inextricably involved with the responses to Roman literature, history, and philosophy documented in Norman Vance's The Victorians and Ancient Rome (1997). 7 The intertwining of Greek and Roman literature was evident in the works of Augustan writers such as Virgil and Horace, who reworked the classics of Greek literature for their own era, providing a model of intertextual engagement that many Victorian writers chose to emulate.…”

Victorian Literature and the Reception of Greece and Rome

“…‘Why the Greeks and not the Romans in Victorian Britain?’ asked Turner in 1989, in line with a widespread perception that dominant Roman influences in the ‘Augustan’ 18th century give way to a 19th‐century fascination with Greece. Jonathan Sachs argues against this ‘zero‐sum game where the more relevant Greece is seen to be for contemporary life, the less relevant Rome must be’ (9). He examines the reception of Greece and Rome (and of the relationship between the two civilisations) in the Romantic period, particularly for political purposes: ‘the deployment of classical examples in framing contemporary understandings of such central aspects of modernity as democracy, popular revolt, empire, and tyranny’ (2).…”