Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity: Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation of Modernity

408 Pages·2011·6.73 MB·English

by  Goldhill

VICTORIAN CULTURE AND CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
MARTIN CLASSICAL LECTURES
The Martin Classical Lectures are delivered annually at Oberlin College through
a foundation established by his many friends in honor of Charles Beebe Martin,
for forty-five years a teacher of classical literature and art at Oberlin.
John Peradotto, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey
Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic
Ethics
Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of
Popular Rule
Anne Carson, Economy of the Unlost: (Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul
Celan)
Helene P. Foley, Female Acts in Greek Tragedy
Mark W. Edwards, Sound, Sense, and Rhythm: Listening to Greek and Latin
Poetry
Michael C. J. Putnam, Poetic Interplay: Catullus and Horace
Julia Haig Gaisser, The Fortunes of Apuleius and the Golden Ass: A Study in
Transmission and Reception
Kenneth J. Reckford, Recognizing Persius
Leslie Kurke, Aesopic Conversations: Popular Tradition, Cultural Dialogue,
and the Invention of Greek Prose
Erich Gruen, Rethinking the Other in Antiquity
Simon Goldhill, Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity: Art, Opera, Fiction,
and the Proclamation of Modernity
VICTORIAN CULTURE AND
CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY
Art, Opera, Fiction, and the Proclamation
of Modernity
Simon Goldhill
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
PRINCETON AND OXFORD
Copyright © 2011 Princeton University Press Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work
should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41
William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
press.princeton.edu All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Goldhill,
Simon.
Victorian culture and classical antiquity: art, opera, fiction, and the proclamation of modernity / Simon
Goldhill.
p. cm. — (Martin classical lectures) Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-691-14984-4 (acid-free paper) 1. Great Britain—Intellectual life—19th century. 2. Great
Britain—Civilization—19th century. 3. English literature—19th century—Classical influences. 4. Art,
Victorian—Great Britain. 5. Art, British—Classical influences. 6. Opera—Classical influences. I. Title. II.
Series.
DA550.G65 2011
2010049711
941.081—dc22
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in Janson Text LT
STD
Printed on acid-free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
INTRODUCTION
Discipline and Revolution: Classics in Victorian Culture
PART 1. ART AND DESIRE
CHAPTER ONE
The Art of Reception: J. W. Waterhouse and the Painting of Desire in Victorian
Britain
Fleshliness and Purity
Visualizing Desire, Elsewhere
Off the Chocolate Box
CHAPTER TWO
The Touch of Sappho
Viewed in the Light of Greece
Touching
Sappho on the Strand
PART 2. MUSIC AND CULTURAL POLITICS
CHAPTER THREE
Who Killed Chevalier Gluck?
Revolutionary Opera
The Art of Crying and the Happy Ending
Disinterring a Classic
The German Way
London Fashion
CHAPTER FOUR
Wagner’s Greeks: The Politics of Hellenism
“To be half a day a Greek!”
Staging the Sonderweg
Endeavoring to Forget
PART 3. FICTION: VICTORIAN NOVELS OF ANCIENT ROME
CHAPTER FIVE
For God and Empire
Every Book Needs a Hero
Whose History?
Fictionalizing the Past
CHAPTER SIX
Virgins, Lions, and Honest Pluck
The Knebworth Apollo
The Fiction of the Church
The Best-Selling Novel in America
The Harry Potter Effect
Jews, Egyptians, and Other Clichés of the Popular Sublime
SEVEN
Only Connect!
The Life of the Author
Victoria’s Historian, Darwin’s Parson
The Fight for the Middle Ground
CODA
Notes
Bibliography
Index
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures

1.1. Diadumene (clothed), Edward John Poynter
1.2. Diadumene, Edward John Poynter
1.3. The Swimming Hole, Thomas Eakins
1.4. Circe and the Companions of Ulysses, Louis Chalon
1.5. Circe Enchants Odysseus’ Companions, Arthur Hacker
2.1. Sappho, Queen Victoria
2.2. The Fisherman and the Syren, Frederic Leighton, First Baron Leighton
2.3. Oedipus and the Sphinx, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
2.4. Oedipus and the Sphinx, Gustave Moreau
3.1. Pauline Viardot as Orpheus
3.2. Pauline Viardot as Orpheus (Hector Berlioz Photo Album)
3.3. Pauline Viardot
3.4. Jessie Bovill
3.5. Viola Tree as Iphigeneia
3.6. Edyth Walker as Electra
4.1. A contemporary sketch of Wagner conducting a rehearsal of The Ring
4.2. Frantz Betz as Wotan
4.3. Hoffmann’s design for Act 1 of Götterdämmerung
4.4. Neumann’s set for Act 1 of Götterdämmerung
4.5. Hoffmann’s design for the Rhinemaidens
4.6. The Rhinemaidens in the first performance at Bayreuth
4.7. A contemporary drawing of the Rhinemaidens from the first performance at
Bayreuth
4.8. Hitler celebrated at Bayreuth
4.9. A poster from the first performance of the Ring at Bayreuth, after the
Second World War
4.10. Wotan (Hans Hotter) and Brünnhilde (Marta Modl) from Wieland
Wagner’s Ring
4.11. The awakening scene from Siegfried in Wieland Wagner’s Ring
4.12. The walkways from Wieland Wagner’s set for the Ring
C.1. Untitled, Wilhelm von Gloeden
C.2. Line Drawing of a von Gloeden Photograph, Andy Warhol
C.3. Standing Male Nude, Andy Warhol
C.4. Male Nude, Andy Warhol
C.5. Sleeping Satyr or Barberini Faun, marble copy of a bronze original

Plates

1. Saint Eulalia, John William Waterhouse
2. Saint Cecilia, John William Waterhouse
3. Hypatia, Charles William Mitchell
4. A Sculptor’s Model, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
5. St Elizabeth of Hungary’s Great Act of Renunciation, Philip Hermogenes
Calderon
6. Mariamne, John William Waterhouse
7. Hylas and the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse
8. Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses, John William Waterhouse
9. The Siren, John William Waterhouse
10. Sappho and Alcaeus, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
11. A Reading from Homer, Lawrence Alma-Tadema
12. Sappho, Charles Auguste Mengin
13. Sappho and Phaon, Jacques-Louis David
14. Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, Simeon Solomon
15. The Kiss of the Sphinx, Franz von Stuck
16. A Roman Holiday, Briton Rivière