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For a long time, the ancient world – Greece, the Roman Empire, but also Babylon – 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. 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 study a wide and 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. A reader will be available from the usual place in Reckhammerweg.
This seminar will be accompanied by a study tour to Edinburgh which will take place in autumn, before the beginning of the winter semester. A limited number of places will be available, these come with a subsidy of € 200 per person.
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. |
