Victorian Engagements with the Bible and Antiquity

The Shock of the Old

Simon Goldhill, Ruth Jackson Ravenscroft

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2023
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781009306485
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The nineteenth century was a period in which ideas of history and time were challenged as never before. This is the first book to explore how the study of classical antiquity and the study of the Bible together formed an image of the past which became central to Victorian self-understanding. These specially commissioned, multi-disciplinary essays brilliantly reveal the richness of Victorian thinking about the past and how important these models of antiquity were in the expression of modernity. In an age of progress, cultural anxiety and cultural hope was fuelled by the shock of the old – new discoveries about the deep past, and new ways of thinking about humanity's place in history. The volume provides a rich and readable feast which will be fundamental to all those seeking a greater understanding of the Victorians, as well as of the reception of classics and the Bible.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: History, God, and Me
• Part I Antiquity’s Modernity
• Part II Making the Past Visible
• Part III Materiality and Spectacle
• Part IV Travelling the World
• Part V Manuscripts, Morality, and Metaphysics
• Part VI Intellectual Superstars: The Limits of Religion
• Bibliography
• Index