A book on modern mythology

How the modern world understood the ancient Greeks and why they matter today. The study of ancient Greece has been central to Western conceptions of history since the Renaissance. The Muse of History traces the shifting patterns of this preoccupation in the last three centuries, in which successive generations have reinterpreted the Greeks in the light of their contemporary worlds. Thus, in the eighteenth century, the conflict between Athens and Sparta became a touchstone in the development of republicanism, and in the nineteenth, Athens came to represent the democratic ideal. Amid the ideological conflicts of the twentieth century, the Greeks were imagined in an age of suffering, inspiring defenses against nationalism, Nazism, communism, and capitalism. Oswyn Murray draws powerful conclusions from this historiography, using the ever-changing narrative of ancient Greece to illuminate grand theories of human society. Analyzing the influence of historians and philosophers including Hegel, Burckhardt, Nietzsche, and Braudel, Murray also considers how coming generations might perceive the Greeks. Along the way, The Muse of History offers rare behind-the-scenes glimpses of figures who shaped the study of ancient Greece, some devotedly cited to this day and others forgotten. We sit in on a class with Arnaldo Momigliano; meet Moses Finley after his arrival in England; eavesdrop on Paul Veyne, Jean-Pierre Vernant, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet; and rediscover Michel Foucault. A thrilling work that rewrites established scholarly traditions and locates important ideas in unexpected places, The Muse of History reminds us that the meaning of the past is always made in and for the present.

Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry, 1741-1806 through an interdisciplinary methodology, The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775-1809 is the first full-length study of the artist?s writings. Liam Lenihan critically assesses the artist?s own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan?s book delves into the connections between Barry?s writings and art, and the cultural and political issues that dominated the public sphere in London during the American and French Revolutions. Barry?s writings are read within the context of the political and aesthetic thought of his distinguished friends and contemporaries, such as Edmund Burke, his first patron; Joshua Reynolds, his sometime friend and rival; Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin, with whom he was later friends; and his students and adversaries, William Blake and Henry Fuseli. Ultimately, Lenihan?s interdisciplinary reading shows the extent to which Barry?s faith in the classical tradition in general, and the genre of history painting in particular, is permeated by the hermeneutics of suspicion. This study explores and contextualizes Barry?s attempt to rethink and remake the preeminent art form of his era.

Examining the literary career of the eighteenth-century Irish painter James Barry, 1741-1806 through an interdisciplinary methodology, The Writings of James Barry and the Genre of History Painting, 1775-1809 is the first full-length study of the artist’s writings. Liam Lenihan critically assesses the artist’s own aesthetic philosophy about painting and printmaking, and reveals the extent to which Barry wrestles with the significant stylistic transformations of the pre-eminent artistic genre of his age: history painting. Lenihan’s book delves into the connections between Barry’s writings and art, and the cultural and political issues that dominated the public sphere in London during the American and French Revolutions.

This volume considers how ideas were made visible through the making of art and visual experience occasioned by reception during the long eighteenth century. The event that gave rise to the collection was the 15th David Nichol Smith Seminar in Eighteenth-Century Studies, which launched a new Australian and New Zealand Society of Eighteenth-Century Studies. Two strands of interest are explored by the individual authors. The first four essays work with ideas about material objects and identity formation, suggesting how the artist's physical environment contributes to the sense of self, as a practicing artist or artisan, as an individual patron or collector, or as a woman or religious outsider. The last four essays address the intellectual work that can be expressed through or performed by objects. Through a consideration of the material formation of concepts, this book explores questions that are implicated by the need to see ideas in painted, sculpted, illustrated, and designed forms. In doing so, it introduces new visual materials and novel conceptual models into traditional accounts of the intellectual history of the Enlightenment.

This study traces the steady decline of classical authority in English literature from the mid-seventeenth century and the role of translation in shifting the emphasis away the classical learning. The author focuses on Virgil, once the most revered of poets but also explores the fate of some of his fellow Ancients.

Venerated as god and goddess, feared as demon and pestilence, trusted as battle omen, and used as a proving ground for optical theories, the rainbow's image is woven into the fabric of our past and present. From antiquity to the nineteenth century, the rainbow has played a vital role in both inspiring and testing new ideas about the physical world. Although scientists today understand the rainbow's underlying optics fairly well, its subtle variability in nature has yet to be fully explained. Throughout history the rainbow has been seen primarily as a symbol&—of peace, covenant, or divine sanction&—rather than as a natural phenomenon. Lee and Fraser discuss the role the rainbow has played in societies throughout the ages, contrasting its guises as a sign of optimism, bearer of Greek gods' messages of war and retribution, and a symbol of the Judeo-Christian bridge to the divine. The authors traverse the bridges between the rainbow's various roles as they explore its scientific, artistic, and folkloric visions. This unique book, exploring the rainbow from the perspectives of atmospheric optics, art history, color theory, and mythology, will inspire readers to gaze at the rainbow anew. For more information on The Rainbow Bridge, visit: &

"Since the Bible left little room for speculation on prehistory - in fact, no room at all for the concept itself - this study concentrates on myth and legend outside of the biblical context and on those who conjured prehistory out of these sources. A subtle conflict between belief and skepticism emerges from these pages, as Ferguson reveals how some Renaissance writers struggled with the ancient explanations that flouted reason and experience, while others sidestepped such doubts by relating prehistory to man's social evolution. By isolating and analyzing such topics as euhemerism (the interpretation of myths as traditional accounts of historical events and persons), skepticism, rationalism, and poetic history, Ferguson clarifies Renaissance attempts to find in poetic expression a way of "mediating" between a version of the past preserved in myth and legend and one that might square with historical scholarship." "Written in an accessible and eloquent style, Utter Antiquity illuminates the development of historical consciousness in early modern England, and, in doing so, contributes significantly to an understanding of the Renaissance mind."--BOOK JACKET.