Instructor: Dr. Efterpi Mitsi, Associate Professor
“We are all Greeks,” Shelley declared in his Preface to Hellas (1822): “Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their roots inGreece.” At the same time, after seeing the crew of a Greek boat inItaly, the poet expressed his ambivalence about modernGreece, telling his friend Trelawney, “I had rather not have any more of my hopes and illusions mocked by sad realities.” By focusing on the fascination, anxiety and resistance that characterizes the Romantic understanding ofGreece, this course will introduce students to Romantic Hellenism through an encounter with a range of writers across many genres, poetry, fiction, essays and travel writing. It will examine the selected literary and aesthetic works in the light of the historical circumstances in which they were produced: the rise of Greece as the supreme cultural and aesthetic model in late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Britain; the movement of British Romanticism, which sought to question established cultural images; the arrival of the Parthenon sculptures enchanting the British writers and artists, many of whom, however, deplored their removal; the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821 making Hellas the realm in which imagination and politics could converge.
Considering current critical and theoretical debates about Romanticism and Hellenism, the course will investigate such contemporary issues as: liberty and slavery, travel and the self, Empire and the Orient, Romantic aesthetic theory and poetic practice, the role of women as authors and (Phil)Hellenists. The class will be organized around students’ close reading and critique of individual texts and will develop with classroom discussion and short presentations. Assessment takes the form of a research paper (including a proposal, outline and bibliography); a case study; an oral presentation; and class participation.