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For a long time, the ancient world – Greece, the Roman Empire, but also Babylon and Egypt – loomed large in the British imagination. In the Middle Ages, it was believed that London was founded by a descendant of the Trojan hero Aeneas. From the Renaissance on, English literature was profoundly influenced by the works ancient writers. As the British Empire developed, it came to be seen as a modern equivalent of the Roman Empire. This led to the idea that London was the new Rome, a notion that gained currency in the early eighteenth century and remained very influential throughout the nineteenth century and beyond.
The ancient world as a cultural model affected many spheres of life – from literature to architecture, art and fashion. London is full of neo-classical architecture, paintings and statues. While London was thought of as the new Rome, Edinburgh re-invented itself as the Athens of the North, with an impressive neo-classical New Town and a bizarre attempt at creating a Scottish copy of the Parthenon temple. Authors, artists and architects speculated about how, one day, the British Empire would be a thing of the past, and how it would be studied by archaeologists of the future. There are historical novels set in ancient Rome, or, even better, in Roman Britain, and there are interesting movies (such as I, Claudius) based on such novels. In this seminar, we are going to look at all of this … a fascinating range of phenomena, texts, images, architecture, movies, from the Middle Ages to the present day, and from epic poetry to The Life of Brian. This seminar will also very probably feature special events such as an opportunity to meet the closest equivalent of a real-life Roman legionary (a member of a group of historical re-enactors), and possibly a visit from a specialist in the reception of ancient history. There will be a Moodle room in which a reader (along with other material) will be made available. You will receive the Moodle password via e-mail.
I hope to do a study tour to London accompanying this seminar, which would be an opportunity to look at neo-classical architecture, a spectacular obelisk on the Thames Embankment, the weird, wonderful and spooky Roman and Egyptian underworld in Sir John Soane´s Museum, eighteenth-century portraits in which English people look like ancient Romans, the actual Roman city walls of London, and many other things besides. My plan is to do this in September – but please bear in mind this can only happen if I manage to get a viable group of people together. A limited number of places will be available, and those will hopefully come with a financial subsidy to make the whole trip more affordable.
Requirements: thorough preparation for each session, active participation, and, if applicable, written work according to your particular Studienordnung. As always: think, enjoy (!), annotate, and look things up if necessary. Useful background knowledge of key cultural, historical and literary contexts of classicism can be found here: Christoph Heyl, Kleine Englische Literaturgeschichte. J.B. Metzler. ISBN-13: 978-3476045096.
Just in case your application is rejected by the LSF system: If you want to do this course because you are genuinely interested, you will be most welcome, no matter what LSF says. Please get in touch with claudia.hausmann@uni-due.de who will enrol you manually. The worst that might happen to you is that you cannot do a Leistungsnachweis if you lack the formal requirements. |
