Stead Henry

Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform - Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Stead Henry

Marc Notes: This volume 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. Review Quotes: 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. Biographical Note: 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). Table of Contents: ForewordChapter 1 Introduction: The Twelve Labours of the Class-Conscious Historian of British Classics, Henry Stead (King's College London, UK) Chapter 2 Radicalism and Gradualism Enmeshed: Classics from the Grass-roots in the Cultural Politics of 19th-century Britain, Lorna Hardwick (Open University, UK) Chapter 3 Coleridge, Radicalism-to-Conservatism and the Classics, Adam Roberts (Royal Holloway London, UK) Chapter 4 Swinish Classics; or, a Conservative Clash with Cockney Culture, Henry Stead (King's College London, UK) Chapter 5 Robert Brough and the Moment of Revolution, Ed Richardson (University of Leeds, UK) Chapter 6 Making it Really New: Dickens versus the Classics, Edith Hall (King's College London, UK) Chapter 7 Classics and Social Closure, Christopher Stray (University of Swansea, UK) Chapter 8 Hercules as Symbol of Labour: a 19th-century Class-conflicted Hero, Paula James (Open University, UK) Chapter 9 Vulcan-A Working-Class God? Annie Ravenhill-Johnson (University of Aberystwyth, UK) Chapter 10 Nature versus Nurture: The Problem of Degeneration and Lessons from the Ancient World, Sarah J. Butler (Royal Holloway London, UK) Chapter 11 The Space of Politics: Classics, Utopia and the Defence of Order, Richard Alston (Royal Holloway London, UK) Chapter 12 Classics, Feminism and Socialism 1865-1918, Edith Hall (King's College London, UK) Chapter 13 Classics at the W. E. A., Barbara Goff (University of Reading, UK) Chapter 14 Classical Communism: Christopher Caudwell on the Literature of Greece and Rome, Edith Hall (King's College London, UK) Chapter 15 Staging the Haitian Revolution in London: Britain, the West Indies and C. L. R. James' Toussaint Louverture, Justine McConnell (University of Oxford, UK) Chapter 16 Yesterday's Men: Labour's Modernising Elite from the 1960s to Classical Times, Michael Simpson (Goldsmith's College London, UK) IndexPublisher Marketing: "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. Contributor Bio:  Hall, Edith Edith Hall is one of Britain s foremost classicists, having held posts at the universities of Royal Holloway, Cambridge, Durham, Reading, and Oxford. She is the author and editor of more than a dozen works on the ancient world. She teaches at King s College London and lives in Gloucestershire. Contributor Bio:  Stead, Henry Edith Hall is Research Professor at Royal Holloway University of London, UK.