Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Reform
presents an original and carefully argued case for the importance
of classical ideas, education and self-education in the personal
development and activities of British social reformers in the 19th
and first six decades of the 20th century. Usually drawn from the
lower echelons of the middle class and the most aspirational
artisanal and working-class circles, the prominent reformers,
revolutionaries, feminists and educationalists of this era, far
from regarding education in Latin and Greek as the preserve of the
upper classes and inherently reactionary, were consistently
inspired by the Mediterranean Classics and contested the monopoly
on access to them often claimed by the wealthy and aristocratic
elite. The essays, several of which draw on previously neglected
and unpublished sources, cover literary figures (Coleridge, the
'Cockney Classicist' poets including Keats, and Dickens), different
cultural media (burlesque theatre, body-building, banner art,
poetry, journalism and fiction), topics in social reform (the
desirability of revolution, suffrage, poverty, social exclusion,
women's rights, healthcare, eugenics, town planning, race relations
and workers' education), as well as political affiliations and
agencies (Chartists, Trade Unions, the WEA, political parties
including the Fabians, the Communist Party of Great Britain and the
Labour Party). The sixteen essays in this volume restore to the
history of British Classics some of the subject's ideological
complexity and instrumentality in social progress, a past which is
badly needed in the current debates over the future of the
discipline. Contributors include specialists in English Literature,
History, Classics and Art.
General
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