Women Writers and the Dark Side of Late-Victorian Hellenism

245 Pages·2010·2.075 MB·English

by  T. D. Olverson (auth.)

Women Writers and the DarkSide of Late-VictorianHellenism
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Women Writers and the Dark
Side of Late-Victorian
Hellenism
T. D. Olverson
palgrave
macmillan
©T.D.Olverson2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-21559-7
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Introduction:ContestedGround:GenderandVictorian
Hellenism(s) 1
Thedemosandtheclassics 6
TheshininglightofGreekculture 8
The‘trickofGreek’:women’saccesstotheclassics 10
DaughtersofDionysus 18
1 TakingontheTradition:AugustaWebster’sFeminist
Revisionism 27
Ofmaidens,magicandmurder:Webster’s‘Circe’and‘Medea
inAthens’ 32
‘AmInohappywife?’:Webster’s‘MedeainAthens’ 33
Herownmistress:Webster’s‘Circe’ 45
2 AmyLevy’sGreek(Anti-)Heroines 54
‘Hertenderlanguagewhollymisconceived’:AmyLevy’s
Xantippe 57
Hellenismandanarchy:Levy’sMedea 69
3 WorldswithoutWomen:EmilyPfeiffer’sPolitical
Hellenism 83
EmilyPfeiffer’s‘StudiesfromtheAntique’ 85
Makingsilencespeak:Kassandra’sburningwords 91
‘Powertowreakhighruin’:femalemilitancyandPfeiffer’s
‘Klytemnestra’ 100
4 OldGreekWineinNewBottles:MichaelField’sDionysiac
Poetics 111
MichaelField’seroticpoetics 116
Themiss-educationofMichaelField 118
LibidinouslaureatesandlyricalMaenads:MichaelField,
SwinburneandthesexualpoliticsoferoticHellenism 123
‘Iamamaenad,Imusthavelove’swine’:MichaelField’s
Callirrhoë 127
v
vi Contents
5 Medea’sHauntingoftheFin-de-Siècle 145
Thespiritofrebellion:MonaCaird’sDaughtersofDanaus 148
Medea’safterlifeinVernonLee’s‘AmourDure’ 157
Afterword:LookingBackWithanEyetotheFuture 171
Notes 175
Bibliography 206
Index 231
Acknowledgements
This book developed over several years with the support of many friends
andcolleagues.IowemygratitudetoLindaR.Anderson,whosesupporthas
helpedtoseethisprojectthroughtoitsconclusion.Iwouldalsoliketothank
HilaryFraserforhergenerousencouragementandintellectualexample,and
JohnBatchelor,NaomiHetherington,LindaBeckmanandKathleenHickok
for their helpful advice. I am also grateful to the anonymous reader from
Palgrave,whoseusefulcommentshavehelpedtoshapethisstudyandrefine
myideas.
My sincere thanks to all the staff at the Robinson Library, Newcas-
tle. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Mrs Basil Herbertson for
permission to reference her husband’s article, to the staff of Cambridge
UniversityLibrary,theBritishLibrary,JohnRylandsLibrary,SpecialCollec-
tions staff at Leeds University Library, Colin Harris of the Bodleian Library,
Anne Thomson of Newnham College Library, administrators and staff at
the Camellia Collection,Kent, and Special Collections staff at the National
LibraryofScotland.
I’dliketothankPaulaKennedyandStevenHallatPalgravefortheirenthu-
siasticsupportforthisproject.Mywarmestthanksareduetomyfamilyand
friendsforalltheirencouragementoverthislongperiodoftime,particularly
myfatherPhillipandmymotherElaine.Finally,Iwouldliketodedicatethis
bookbothtothememoryofmygrandmother,AudreyTerry,andtoLouise
A.Armstrong.Withoutyourunconditionalloveandsupportthewritingof
thisbookwouldnothavebeenpossible–thankyou,foreverything.
vii
Introduction: Contested Ground:
Gender and Victorian Hellenism(s)
The ancient classics resemble the universe. They are always there,
and they are very much the same as ever. But as the philosophy
of every new age puts a fresh construction on the universe, so in
the classics scholarship finds a perennial object for ever fresh and
originalinterpretation.1
Myths by reason of their symbolic pregnancy and spontaneity of
origin,areeverlastinglyelastic.2
Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of
entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for women
morethanachapterinculturalhistory:itisanactofsurvival.3
‘IthankgodIwasbornahumanandnotananimal,amanandnot
awoman,aGreekandnotabarbarian’–Socrates
WhatwenowthinkofastheHellenicinheritancewithinBritishculturewas
a Victorian invention. After the first wave of artists and explorers returned
from Greece in the eighteenth century, Greek culture became, as Richard
Jenkyns suggests, ‘à la mode; art, archaeology, history and philology would
haveanucleusaroundwhichtheycouldgather,eachstimulatinginterestin
theothers’.4IftheRomanticsrediscoveredthehistoricalsignificanceandthe
artistic potential of the ancient Greeks, it was the Victorians who adopted
Hellenism as an integral part of British culture.5 Dwight Culler notes that,
‘it was clearly a habit of mind among the Victorians to perceive analogies
between their own day and various historical epochs in the past and then
tousetheseanalogiesinconductingtheircontroversies’.6 Bythelatenine-
teenth century, the period on which this study is focused, ‘ancient Greece’
constitutedavarietyofcompetingdiscourses.7Indeed,accordingtoBernard
Knox, ‘the Victorians appropriated the ancient Greeks, imagined them as
contemporaries,andusedtheirwritingsasweaponsintheirownideological
1
2 WomenWritersandtheDarkSideofLate-VictorianHellenism
wars’.8 Like the troubled ‘nation’ of Greece, nineteenth-century Hellenism
wasideologicallyimportantbutfraughtwithtensionandconflict.
HilaryFrasersuggeststhat,‘Victoriancommentatorswereacutelyawareof
thevarietiesofclassicismandmedievalismdisplayedamongcontemporary
poets.’9 One of the aims of this study is, therefore, to amplify the various
networks of interests at play within Victorian Hellenism(s). Of the numer-
ousdiscourseswhichHellenismintersectsinthenineteenthcentury,oneof
themostsignificantisthatofsexualpolitics.InthefollowingpagesIintend
torevealtheextenttowhichHellenisminfluencedVictorianconceptionsof
gender and sexuality in the work of women writers. That is not to say that
gender-related issues are the only subjects of concern. Wider issues of edu-
cation,racism,spirituality,personalfreedomanddemocracyalltraversethe
appropriationofHellenicsubjectsbywomenwriters.Moreover,womendid
notwriteorgeneratetheirworkfromwithinavacuum;theywereinfluenced
bytheworkandopinionsoftheirmalecontemporaries.Mappingtheinflu-
enceofHellenismoverBritishwomenwritersis,therefore,aconvolutedand
multifarioustask.
It may seem that the Greeks have always shone a light, or cast a long
shadowoverBritishculture,butitwasnotalwaysso.Intheearlyeighteenth
centuryitwasLatinandthegloriesoftheRomanEmpirethatwererevered
as markers of English high culture. In looking back, the Victorians (inap-
propriately) labelled the eighteenth century England’s ‘Augustan Age’.10 As
Cullerobserves,fromthesixteenthtotheeighteenthcenturiesinEngland,
thewordsGreekandGreciancarriedunfavourableconnotations.Manyaristo-
cratic(anti-democratic)leadersinfactpreferredtheancientregimeofSparta
tothatofancientAthens.Athenswasconsideredtobe‘wanton,too“merry,”
andgiventopederasty’.11But,followingtheexcavationsatPompeiiin1748
and the publication of James Stuart and Nicholas Revett’s extraordinary
drawings of the Greek mainland and its architectural treasures, interest in
thecivilizationofancientGreecewasrevived.12
On the continent, Johann Winckelmann, Jean Jacques Barthélèmy and
August Wilhelm Schlegel, amongst others, also aroused new interest and
generated great debate about the lives of the ancient Greeks through their
ownliteraryandartisticinterpretations.Butwhatismostinterestingabout
this sudden avalanche of critical interest is that at this time, as Jennifer
Wallace reminds us, ‘the official account of Greece did not yet exist, with
theresultthatthesewriterswerestillabletodisputeandreshapetheirideas’.
Furthermore,‘thesenewideasofGreecewereseenaspioneeringandradical,
emanatingfromoutsidethestandardculturalexpectationsandinstitutional
values’.13 Hellenism was, at this point, a relatively fluid set of images and
ideas,underdebateandunderconstruction.
Bythemiddleofthenineteenthcentury,manyVictoriansfeltacloseaffin-
ity with the glorious achievements of ancient Greece and Rome. For the
agentsandsupportersofEngland’sburgeoningEmpire,thepolitical,military