Overview

Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform presents an original and carefully argued case for the importance of classical ideas, education and self-education in the personal development and activities of British social reformers in the 19th and first six decades of the 20th century. Usually drawn from the lower echelons of the middle class and the most aspirational artisanal and working-class circles, the prominent reformers, revolutionaries, feminists and educationalists of this era, far from regarding education in Latin and Greek as the preserve of the upper classes and inherently reactionary, were consistently inspired by the Mediterranean Classics and contested the monopoly on access to them often claimed by the wealthy and aristocratic elite. The essays, several of which draw on previously neglected and unpublished sources, cover literary figures (Coleridge, the ‘Cockney Classicist’ poets including Keats, and Dickens), different cultural media (burlesque theatre, body-building, banner art, poetry, journalism and fiction), topics in social reform (the desirability of revolution, suffrage, poverty, social exclusion, women’s rights, healthcare, eugenics, town planning, race relations and workers’ education), as well as political affiliations and agencies (Chartists, Trade Unions, the WEA, political parties including the Fabians, the Communist Party of Great Britain and the Labour Party). The sixteen essays in this volume restore to the history of British Classics some of the subject’s ideological complexity and instrumentality in social progress, a past which is badly needed in the current debates over the future of the discipline. Contributors include specialists in English Literature, History, Classics and Art.

Full Product Details

Author:   Dr Henry Stead (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Open University, UK) ,  Edith Hall (University of Durham, UK)
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.540kg
ISBN:  

9781350019164

ISBN 10:   135001916
Pages:   384
Publication Date:   15 December 2016
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction, Henry Stead (King’s College London, UK) and Edith Hall (King's College London, UK) 2. Radicalism and Gradualism Enmeshed: Classics from the Grass-roots in the Cultural Politics of 19th-century Britain, Lorna Hardwick (Open University, UK) 3. Coleridge's Classicised Politics, Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway London, UK) 4. Swinish Classics; or, a Conservative Clash with Cockney Culture, Henry Stead (King’s College London, UK) 5. The Harmless Impudence of a Revolutionary: Radical Classics in 1850s London, Edmund Richardson (University of Leeds, UK) 6. Making it Really New: Dickens versus the Classics, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK) 7. Classics and Social Closure, Christopher Stray (University of Swansea, UK) 8. Hercules as Symbol of Labour: a 19th-century Class-conflicted Hero, Paula James (Open University, UK) 9. Vulcan — A 'Working Class' God? Annie Ravenhill-Johnson (University of Aberystwyth, UK) 10. Nature versus Nurture: Population Decline and Lessons from the Ancient World, Sarah J. Butler (Royal Holloway London, UK) 11. The Space of Politics: Classics, Utopia and the Defence of Order, Richard Alston (Royal Holloway London, UK) 12. Classically Educated Women in the Early Independent Labour Party, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK) 13. The Greeks of the W.E.A.: Realities and Rhetorics in the First Two Decades, Barbara Goff (University of Reading, UK) 14. Christopher Caudwell's Greek and Latin Classics, Edith Hall (King’s College London, UK) 15. Staging the Haitian Revolution in London: Britain, the West Indies and C.L.R. James’ Toussaint Louverture, Justine McConnell (University of Oxford, UK) 16. Yesterday's Men: Labour's Modernising Elite from the 1960s to Classical Times, Michael Simpson (Goldsmith’s College London, UK) Bibliography Index

Reviews

This collection explores some unfamiliar byways and usefully reacts against ... the idea that classical culture was used as a barrier to keep the workers out. Times Literary Supplement The first substantial published product of the pioneering Arts and Humanities Research Council 'Classics and Class in Britain 1789-1939' project ... [features] a sparky introduction ... [and] is full of unexpected gems ... A pioneering project, and one full of potential for expansion and elaboration in terms both of subjects and of individuals. Classics For All Reviews A bold and theoretically sophisticated look at the relationship between Greek and Roman classics as cultural property and social class in Britain. This volume demonstrates that while it is the case that access to classical education maintained barriers it is also irrefutably true that reform-minded people from all classes appropriated the classics in compelling ways, and that a diversity of engagements with the classical world characterizes this unruly period in British history. Anyone interested in the future of classics should read this account of its past. -- S. Sara Monoson, Professor of Political Science and Classics, Northwestern University, USA

This collection explores some unfamiliar byways and usefully reacts against ... the idea that classical culture was used as a barrier to keep the workers out. * Times Literary Supplement * The first substantial published product of the pioneering Arts and Humanities Research Council `Classics and Class in Britain 1789-1939' project ... [features] a sparky introduction ... [and] is full of unexpected gems ... A pioneering project, and one full of potential for expansion and elaboration in terms both of subjects and of individuals. * Classics For All Reviews * A bold and theoretically sophisticated look at the relationship between Greek and Roman classics as cultural property and social class in Britain. This volume demonstrates that while it is the case that access to classical education maintained barriers it is also irrefutably true that reform-minded people from all classes appropriated the classics in compelling ways, and that a diversity of engagements with the classical world characterizes this unruly period in British history. Anyone interested in the future of classics should read this account of its past. -- S. Sara Monoson, Professor of Political Science and Classics, Northwestern University, USA

This collection explores some unfamiliar byways and usefully reacts against ... the idea that classical culture was used as a barrier to keep the workers out. * Times Literary Supplement * The first substantial published product of the pioneering Arts and Humanities Research Council 'Classics and Class in Britain 1789-1939' project ... [features] a sparky introduction ... [and] is full of unexpected gems ... A pioneering project, and one full of potential for expansion and elaboration in terms both of subjects and of individuals. * Classics For All Reviews * The aims of the volume are to be commended, and a book such as this provides a means for the reader to add some all-important (modern) historical context to his or her study of the ancient world. * Classics Ireland * It is an important achievement of Stead and Hall's volume that it succeeds in showcasing a wide range of contexts in the history of British social and political reform where the Greek and Roman classics have played a role in shaping, inspiring and legitimising a progressive and reformist agenda ... To render this elusive, complex dialogue more visible and graspable for the reader is the real achievement of [their] volume. * The Classical Review * A bold and theoretically sophisticated look at the relationship between Greek and Roman classics as cultural property and social class in Britain. This volume demonstrates that while it is the case that access to classical education maintained barriers it is also irrefutably true that reform-minded people from all classes appropriated the classics in compelling ways, and that a diversity of engagements with the classical world characterizes this unruly period in British history. Anyone interested in the future of classics should read this account of its past.

Author Information

Edith Hall is Professor of Classics, King’s College London, UK, and Consultant Director of the APGRD in Oxford, UK. She has published more than twenty books on ancient Greek culture and its reception including Inventing the Barbarian (1989), The Theatrical Cast of Athens (2006), The Return of Ulysses (2008), Greek Tragedy (2010), Adventures with Iphigenia in Tauris (2013) and Introducing the Ancient Greeks (2014). Henry Stead is AHRC Postdoctoral Research Associate, King’s College London, UK, and author of A Cockney Catullus (forthcoming).

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