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.