I am a PhD student in the final stages of writing my thesis, entitled ‘"Re-crossing the ritual bridge": Jane Harrison's theory of Art in the Works of Hope Mirrlees’. Supervisors: Dr Andrew Radford and Dr Vassiliki Kolocotroni
This article considers the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison’s ritual theory of art as part of an in... more This article considers the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison’s ritual theory of art as part of an intellectual, cultural and aesthetic zeitgeist occurring at the beginning of the 20th century. While centred on ancient Greek culture and art, Harrison’s work is directly connected to her concerns with religion and art in her own time. Her theory posits ritual as the forgotten origin of art and theology and sees in the modern period a return to this source in both religion and art. I argue that her theory implies a particular aesthetic which speaks to key shifts happening concurrently across the arts in Europe and America, and that the scope of her theory, incorporating insights from a range of fields of study, makes it a useful and unique lens through which to contextualise and view important developments in the arts during this period. Leading examples of these developments are considered from the fields of visual art, literature, theatre and particularly dance.
This chapter considers how Hope Mirrlees’s unique brand of antiquarianism harnesses Jane Harrison... more This chapter considers how Hope Mirrlees’s unique brand of antiquarianism harnesses Jane Harrison’s ritual theory of art. A focus on embodied mystical experience, connecting the present to the past, emerges. This focus is present in Mirrlees’s Paris (1920). Drawing on anthropological and classical tropes from Harrison’s theory, the poem enacts a ritual aimed at effecting cultural and religious regeneration in the wake of the Great War, but in a way that mirrors Mirrlees’s formulation of the object of antiquarianism. Paris not only represents a vivid spiritual experience, but also seeks to impart it to future readers in the way it captures an epochal moment in history and through its performative emphasis on the materiality of the text, creating a mystical artefact of the poem itself.
This thesis considers the dominating element of ritual in the works of Hope Mirrlees, a theme and... more This thesis considers the dominating element of ritual in the works of Hope Mirrlees, a theme and structuring framework that grows out of her relationship to the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison. Harrison's theory, which draws on modern theories of anthropology and psychology and up-to-date archaeological excavations of antiquities, comments on the modernist period through the unique lens of her ritual theory of art. I explore how the grounding of her theory in these fields as well as the visual-tactile practice of archaeology and the body-focused aesthetic of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood point towards a materialist, performative aesthetic centred on process and desire. Her ritual theory, I argue, can be read as a diagnosis of the cultural, intellectual and aesthetic climate of her day, calling for a greater emphasis on emotional, embodied experience in religion as well as art, challenging the individualist intellectualism of theology and what she sees as the static, lifeless na...
This article considers the way Hope Mirrlees’s long experimental poem Paris (1920) realises her w... more This article considers the way Hope Mirrlees’s long experimental poem Paris (1920) realises her wish for poetry to ‘preserve the present, tangibly’, a wish arising from her deep antiquarian interests. Mirrlees’s antiquarianism highlights the ability of antiquaries to physically preserve the present through their collections, which contrasts with the narratives produced by historians and is bound up, for Mirrlees, with an appreciation of texts as palpable historical artefacts. This formulation of antiquarianism reveals the profound influence on Mirrlees of her mentor Jane Harrison, renowned classicist and theorist on ritual. Harrison’s ritual theory, which emphasises the concrete and performative, is absorbed in Mirrlees’s conceptualisation of antiquarianism and in Paris, which enacts, through its emphasis on its own materiality, a tangible preservation of the moment in which it was written. Mirrlees thus participates in an overlooked textual tradition concerned with signifying a historical context through material bibliographical properties, as well as in the modernist aesthetic shift towards a stronger engagement with materiality.
This article considers the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison’s ritual theory of art as part of an in... more This article considers the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison’s ritual theory of art as part of an intellectual, cultural and aesthetic zeitgeist occurring at the beginning of the 20th century. While centred on ancient Greek culture and art, Harrison’s work is directly connected to her concerns with religion and art in her own time. Her theory posits ritual as the forgotten origin of art and theology and sees in the modern period a return to this source in both religion and art. I argue that her theory implies a particular aesthetic which speaks to key shifts happening concurrently across the arts in Europe and America, and that the scope of her theory, incorporating insights from a range of fields of study, makes it a useful and unique lens through which to contextualise and view important developments in the arts during this period. Leading examples of these developments are considered from the fields of visual art, literature, theatre and particularly dance.
This chapter considers how Hope Mirrlees’s unique brand of antiquarianism harnesses Jane Harrison... more This chapter considers how Hope Mirrlees’s unique brand of antiquarianism harnesses Jane Harrison’s ritual theory of art. A focus on embodied mystical experience, connecting the present to the past, emerges. This focus is present in Mirrlees’s Paris (1920). Drawing on anthropological and classical tropes from Harrison’s theory, the poem enacts a ritual aimed at effecting cultural and religious regeneration in the wake of the Great War, but in a way that mirrors Mirrlees’s formulation of the object of antiquarianism. Paris not only represents a vivid spiritual experience, but also seeks to impart it to future readers in the way it captures an epochal moment in history and through its performative emphasis on the materiality of the text, creating a mystical artefact of the poem itself.
This thesis considers the dominating element of ritual in the works of Hope Mirrlees, a theme and... more This thesis considers the dominating element of ritual in the works of Hope Mirrlees, a theme and structuring framework that grows out of her relationship to the classicist Jane Ellen Harrison. Harrison's theory, which draws on modern theories of anthropology and psychology and up-to-date archaeological excavations of antiquities, comments on the modernist period through the unique lens of her ritual theory of art. I explore how the grounding of her theory in these fields as well as the visual-tactile practice of archaeology and the body-focused aesthetic of the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood point towards a materialist, performative aesthetic centred on process and desire. Her ritual theory, I argue, can be read as a diagnosis of the cultural, intellectual and aesthetic climate of her day, calling for a greater emphasis on emotional, embodied experience in religion as well as art, challenging the individualist intellectualism of theology and what she sees as the static, lifeless na...
This article considers the way Hope Mirrlees’s long experimental poem Paris (1920) realises her w... more This article considers the way Hope Mirrlees’s long experimental poem Paris (1920) realises her wish for poetry to ‘preserve the present, tangibly’, a wish arising from her deep antiquarian interests. Mirrlees’s antiquarianism highlights the ability of antiquaries to physically preserve the present through their collections, which contrasts with the narratives produced by historians and is bound up, for Mirrlees, with an appreciation of texts as palpable historical artefacts. This formulation of antiquarianism reveals the profound influence on Mirrlees of her mentor Jane Harrison, renowned classicist and theorist on ritual. Harrison’s ritual theory, which emphasises the concrete and performative, is absorbed in Mirrlees’s conceptualisation of antiquarianism and in Paris, which enacts, through its emphasis on its own materiality, a tangible preservation of the moment in which it was written. Mirrlees thus participates in an overlooked textual tradition concerned with signifying a historical context through material bibliographical properties, as well as in the modernist aesthetic shift towards a stronger engagement with materiality.
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