Overview

Playful, popular visions of Troy and Carthage, backdrops to the Iliad and Aeneid's epic narratives, shine the spotlight on antiquity's starring role in nineteenth-century culture. This is the story of how these ruined cities inspired bold reconstructions of the Trojan War and its aftermath, how archaeological discoveries in the Troad and North Africa sparked dramatic debates, and how their ruins were exploited to conceptualise problematic relationships between past, present and future. Rachel Bryant Davies breaks new ground in the afterlife of classical antiquity by revealing more complex and less constrained interaction with classical knowledge across a broader social spectrum than yet understood, drawing upon methodological developments from disciplines such as history of science and theatre history in order to do so. She also develops a thorough critical framework for understanding classical burlesque and engages in in-depth analysis of a toy-theatre production.

Full Product Details

9781107192669

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Reviews

'The book is learned and insightful, filled with archival discoveries and analysis of overlooked source material ... makes a strong contribution to reception studies, analysis of cultural discourse in nineteenth-century Britain, and the history of popular culture ...' Elena N. Boeck, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Author Information

Rachel Bryant Davies holds an Addison Wheeler Fellowship in Classics with the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies at the University of Durham and is an Early Career Associate with the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford. She contributed to Cities of God (Cambridge, 2013) and is author of Victorian Epic Burlesques (forthcoming).

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