I have recently completed the MA Classical Art and Archaeology at King's College London. My dissertation topic was on the development of tessellation in Hellenistic mosaic. Supervisors: Dr Will Wootton
According to Greek mythology the first human craftsman was the Athenian, Daidalos, who cultivated... more According to Greek mythology the first human craftsman was the Athenian, Daidalos, who cultivated the crafts of carpentry, sculpture, and masonry, and invented tools for the working of crafts. Yet, his story was itself an invention, and there are few historical craftspeople who can be identified with specific discoveries in antiquity. The isolation of invention processes and their creators is difficult to do for a number of reasons, which I shall outline in this introduction. Ancient authors often described technological discovery as belonging to the gods or to the myth of the Golden Age; a point of view which elevated the people of prehistory as being somehow superior to those of their own day, and thus the πρῶτοι εὑρεταί . Others articulated a myth of human progress which recognised the ingenuity of humankind, and yet limited the agency involved in this process as it pertains to invention.
When the art historian Ernst Gombrich described the changes in Greek artistic representation whic... more When the art historian Ernst Gombrich described the changes in Greek artistic representation which occurred in Athens in the period around the early 5th century B.C.E. in his work Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, he set up a debate which continues to this day. That is, was there a ‘Greek revolution’ in art and, if so, how did it come about? This revolution signalled a formal shift away from the past and from other cultures’ arts to one which to this day defines western art history.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was born into a time of profound intellectual and cultural... more Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was born into a time of profound intellectual and cultural ferment throughout Europe as the Age of Enlightenment came into being. This cultural, artistic, and scientific movement looked to principles of reason and science over superstition and theological dogma, and sought to alleviate the human condition with a focus on rational solutions to eternal problems. Winckelmann was every bit a product of this new approach, and his life’s work both drew upon and informed the tenets of the new age. Born into poverty, yet through his prodigious intellect and resilience he lifted himself out of provincial obscurity to become a central figure in the establishment and codification of classical studies. In response to the scientific urge of his age he sought to take the broad area of art appreciation and to devise a methodology for its analysis, and in so doing he elevated it to a discipline worthy of study in its own right, known as Altertumswissenschaft. This vision was driven by his devout philhellenism and his adoration of what he saw as the Greek ideal represented in art. He sought to bring about an awareness of the beauty of Greek artworks to his contemporaries, in the hope that the conditions which produced that art might be reconstituted into a new aesthetic movement in Enlightenment Europe. Though, through his effort to do this he became increasingly aware of conflicting tensions which existed in the internal logic of his theories. After writing the preeminent study of art history, History of the Art of Antiquity, he recognised that he had taken his ideas as far as they could go. Winckelmann was killed in a conspicuously banal attempted robbery whilst travelling abroad, and the brilliance of his intellect was lost to the world thence.
In the decades after Homer, between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C.E., there was a marked pr... more In the decades after Homer, between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C.E., there was a marked proliferation of Greek poetic production, and whilst Greek lyric poetry likely existed in the time of Homer, nothing of it is known to us today. Many of the poets of the period wrestled intellectually and creatively with their great ancestor, and their work can be read as being both admiring of and antagonistic to the Homeric legacy. This anxiety provided the drive to respond in new ways to the many questions left to them by Homer, and it is through their struggles with that poetic legacy that they have forged voices distinct from anything seen before in the Greek literary record.
Gaius Valerius Catullus’ polymetric and elegiac poems make up two thirds of a body of work which ... more Gaius Valerius Catullus’ polymetric and elegiac poems make up two thirds of a body of work which expresses the poetic and psychological imagination of the finest poetae novi to emerge from that school. His stylistically refined and genre-defying verse, which Cicero famously found distasteful to his own restrained and traditional tastes, yet belies a psychological tension between the old and the new. Simultaneously both eschewing and honouring the conventions of Roman values and literary propriety, Catullus’ oeuvre is metrically diverse, linguistically adventurous, and rich in allusion. His polymetric poems and his elegiac verse both speak of the conflicts within himself, and his attempts to redefine and re-purpose the role of poet in the society in which he lived.
London, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 491 is a Middle English literary multi-text codex dating to ca... more London, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 491 is a Middle English literary multi-text codex dating to ca. 1420-35. It is formed of two discrete parts which were probably bound together in the 17th century for William Sancroft, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Each part has its own story to tell: the literary theme of the first is historical, telling of the struggles of the Kings of England, and the adventures of Arthur and Merlin; while the second is a religious miscellany, featuring the Pricke of Conscience. Part one is written by a prolific scribe known to have been a copyist for important organizations in London. Whereas, part two of the codex has been copied in various hands, none of which have yet been identified. I will provide a bibliography of the manuscript, with an emphasis on part one, and offer a background on the scribe who copied it. We’ll also consider how the divisions in the manuscript’s construction might help to inform modes of book production in late medieval England. As material evidence it offers insight into how a burgeoning readership might have collected anthologies of verse and prose, and how stationers and scriptoria responded to the need for production efficiencies. From quires and booklets, to graffiti and historical notes, Lambeth 491 offers ample material for a case study, as its codicological makeup is abundant with those features typical of a manuscript of its time.
John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was a sensation when it premiered in 1728, running for sixty-two c... more John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was a sensation when it premiered in 1728, running for sixty-two consecutive nights, a record in England at the time. Essential to the success of the opera was its multi-layered satire which Gay rendered in a compact and humorous way. This satire is composed of three primary elements: the aesthetic, which parodied the Italian operatic form then in fashion; the social, which pointed out the hypocrisy and vice within English society; and the political, which concentrated its powers of observation on those ruling the country. These three elements, essential to the meaning of the opera, exposed the failings of England’s society as Gay saw them.
When Virginia Woolf wrote that ‘on or about December 1910, human character changed’ she was prefi... more When Virginia Woolf wrote that ‘on or about December 1910, human character changed’ she was prefiguring a change in the ways in which literature might be written. This new literature, experimental in form, would occupy her energies for the rest of her life. Begun in 1922 and published in 1925 Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway embodied its author’s quest to both define a new literary aesthetic and to lay a path for a more effective approach to realising a writer’s obligations to her art. Woolf forged her unique voice by rejecting the techniques of her Edwardian forebears and by crafting for herself new literary tools in order to construct her novel. She recognised that for her experiment to be a success prose should employ some of the expressive qualities of poetry, that new ways of expressing her characters’ thoughts must be devised, and that narrative time need not be linear. Alongside these innovations Woolf wove into her technique contemporary ideas from painting and psychoanalysis. In the assimilation of modernist theory and in perfecting ground-breaking narrative devices Woolf gave to the world of English literature an entirely new reading experience. One of greater plasticity than before, and which was fit to both describe and excite the mind of the modern reader.
According to Greek mythology the first human craftsman was the Athenian, Daidalos, who cultivated... more According to Greek mythology the first human craftsman was the Athenian, Daidalos, who cultivated the crafts of carpentry, sculpture, and masonry, and invented tools for the working of crafts. Yet, his story was itself an invention, and there are few historical craftspeople who can be identified with specific discoveries in antiquity. The isolation of invention processes and their creators is difficult to do for a number of reasons, which I shall outline in this introduction. Ancient authors often described technological discovery as belonging to the gods or to the myth of the Golden Age; a point of view which elevated the people of prehistory as being somehow superior to those of their own day, and thus the πρῶτοι εὑρεταί . Others articulated a myth of human progress which recognised the ingenuity of humankind, and yet limited the agency involved in this process as it pertains to invention.
When the art historian Ernst Gombrich described the changes in Greek artistic representation whic... more When the art historian Ernst Gombrich described the changes in Greek artistic representation which occurred in Athens in the period around the early 5th century B.C.E. in his work Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, he set up a debate which continues to this day. That is, was there a ‘Greek revolution’ in art and, if so, how did it come about? This revolution signalled a formal shift away from the past and from other cultures’ arts to one which to this day defines western art history.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was born into a time of profound intellectual and cultural... more Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) was born into a time of profound intellectual and cultural ferment throughout Europe as the Age of Enlightenment came into being. This cultural, artistic, and scientific movement looked to principles of reason and science over superstition and theological dogma, and sought to alleviate the human condition with a focus on rational solutions to eternal problems. Winckelmann was every bit a product of this new approach, and his life’s work both drew upon and informed the tenets of the new age. Born into poverty, yet through his prodigious intellect and resilience he lifted himself out of provincial obscurity to become a central figure in the establishment and codification of classical studies. In response to the scientific urge of his age he sought to take the broad area of art appreciation and to devise a methodology for its analysis, and in so doing he elevated it to a discipline worthy of study in its own right, known as Altertumswissenschaft. This vision was driven by his devout philhellenism and his adoration of what he saw as the Greek ideal represented in art. He sought to bring about an awareness of the beauty of Greek artworks to his contemporaries, in the hope that the conditions which produced that art might be reconstituted into a new aesthetic movement in Enlightenment Europe. Though, through his effort to do this he became increasingly aware of conflicting tensions which existed in the internal logic of his theories. After writing the preeminent study of art history, History of the Art of Antiquity, he recognised that he had taken his ideas as far as they could go. Winckelmann was killed in a conspicuously banal attempted robbery whilst travelling abroad, and the brilliance of his intellect was lost to the world thence.
In the decades after Homer, between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C.E., there was a marked pr... more In the decades after Homer, between the seventh and fifth centuries B.C.E., there was a marked proliferation of Greek poetic production, and whilst Greek lyric poetry likely existed in the time of Homer, nothing of it is known to us today. Many of the poets of the period wrestled intellectually and creatively with their great ancestor, and their work can be read as being both admiring of and antagonistic to the Homeric legacy. This anxiety provided the drive to respond in new ways to the many questions left to them by Homer, and it is through their struggles with that poetic legacy that they have forged voices distinct from anything seen before in the Greek literary record.
Gaius Valerius Catullus’ polymetric and elegiac poems make up two thirds of a body of work which ... more Gaius Valerius Catullus’ polymetric and elegiac poems make up two thirds of a body of work which expresses the poetic and psychological imagination of the finest poetae novi to emerge from that school. His stylistically refined and genre-defying verse, which Cicero famously found distasteful to his own restrained and traditional tastes, yet belies a psychological tension between the old and the new. Simultaneously both eschewing and honouring the conventions of Roman values and literary propriety, Catullus’ oeuvre is metrically diverse, linguistically adventurous, and rich in allusion. His polymetric poems and his elegiac verse both speak of the conflicts within himself, and his attempts to redefine and re-purpose the role of poet in the society in which he lived.
London, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 491 is a Middle English literary multi-text codex dating to ca... more London, Lambeth Palace Library MS. 491 is a Middle English literary multi-text codex dating to ca. 1420-35. It is formed of two discrete parts which were probably bound together in the 17th century for William Sancroft, then Archbishop of Canterbury. Each part has its own story to tell: the literary theme of the first is historical, telling of the struggles of the Kings of England, and the adventures of Arthur and Merlin; while the second is a religious miscellany, featuring the Pricke of Conscience. Part one is written by a prolific scribe known to have been a copyist for important organizations in London. Whereas, part two of the codex has been copied in various hands, none of which have yet been identified. I will provide a bibliography of the manuscript, with an emphasis on part one, and offer a background on the scribe who copied it. We’ll also consider how the divisions in the manuscript’s construction might help to inform modes of book production in late medieval England. As material evidence it offers insight into how a burgeoning readership might have collected anthologies of verse and prose, and how stationers and scriptoria responded to the need for production efficiencies. From quires and booklets, to graffiti and historical notes, Lambeth 491 offers ample material for a case study, as its codicological makeup is abundant with those features typical of a manuscript of its time.
John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was a sensation when it premiered in 1728, running for sixty-two c... more John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera was a sensation when it premiered in 1728, running for sixty-two consecutive nights, a record in England at the time. Essential to the success of the opera was its multi-layered satire which Gay rendered in a compact and humorous way. This satire is composed of three primary elements: the aesthetic, which parodied the Italian operatic form then in fashion; the social, which pointed out the hypocrisy and vice within English society; and the political, which concentrated its powers of observation on those ruling the country. These three elements, essential to the meaning of the opera, exposed the failings of England’s society as Gay saw them.
When Virginia Woolf wrote that ‘on or about December 1910, human character changed’ she was prefi... more When Virginia Woolf wrote that ‘on or about December 1910, human character changed’ she was prefiguring a change in the ways in which literature might be written. This new literature, experimental in form, would occupy her energies for the rest of her life. Begun in 1922 and published in 1925 Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway embodied its author’s quest to both define a new literary aesthetic and to lay a path for a more effective approach to realising a writer’s obligations to her art. Woolf forged her unique voice by rejecting the techniques of her Edwardian forebears and by crafting for herself new literary tools in order to construct her novel. She recognised that for her experiment to be a success prose should employ some of the expressive qualities of poetry, that new ways of expressing her characters’ thoughts must be devised, and that narrative time need not be linear. Alongside these innovations Woolf wove into her technique contemporary ideas from painting and psychoanalysis. In the assimilation of modernist theory and in perfecting ground-breaking narrative devices Woolf gave to the world of English literature an entirely new reading experience. One of greater plasticity than before, and which was fit to both describe and excite the mind of the modern reader.
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to realising a writer’s obligations to her art. Woolf forged her unique voice by rejecting the techniques of her Edwardian forebears and by crafting for herself new literary tools in order
to construct her novel. She recognised that for her experiment to be a success prose should employ some of the expressive qualities of poetry, that new ways of expressing her characters’ thoughts must be devised, and that narrative time need not be linear. Alongside these innovations Woolf wove into her technique contemporary ideas from painting and psychoanalysis. In the assimilation of modernist theory and in perfecting ground-breaking narrative devices Woolf gave to the world of English literature an entirely new reading experience. One of greater plasticity than before, and which was fit to both describe and excite the mind of the modern reader.
to realising a writer’s obligations to her art. Woolf forged her unique voice by rejecting the techniques of her Edwardian forebears and by crafting for herself new literary tools in order
to construct her novel. She recognised that for her experiment to be a success prose should employ some of the expressive qualities of poetry, that new ways of expressing her characters’ thoughts must be devised, and that narrative time need not be linear. Alongside these innovations Woolf wove into her technique contemporary ideas from painting and psychoanalysis. In the assimilation of modernist theory and in perfecting ground-breaking narrative devices Woolf gave to the world of English literature an entirely new reading experience. One of greater plasticity than before, and which was fit to both describe and excite the mind of the modern reader.