Victorian culture and classical antiquity: art, opera, fiction, and the proclamation of modernity

Abstract

Simon Goldhill throws down the gauntlet to the entire field of classical reception studies in his new book Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity. This flourishing sub-discipline of Classics has, in the last two decades in particular, explored a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches. It has also attempted to forge connections with and creatively borrow from other academic disciplines including History, Literary Studies, Art History and Cultural Studies to name but a few. Interdisciplinary by its very nature classical reception requires researchers working in the field to engage both with antiquity and its cultural products, as well as with their reception in later periods and cultures. Research projects of this nature are intellectually challenging because they necessitate the crossing of disciplinary boundaries. Therein of course lies the inherent danger, namely of producing work that has too broad a remit and therefore, as some detractors would have it, adds nothing of value to our understanding of classical antiquity. Goldhill?s contention, however, is that we have not gone far enough down this road.