Romantic Hellenism and Women Writers [Hardcover]

Examining popular contexts of Greek revivalism associated with women, Comet challenges the masculine narrative of English Classicism by demonstrating that it thrived in non-male spaces, as an ephemeral ideal that betrayed a distrust of democratic rhetoric that ignored the social inequities of the classical world.Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: From Monumental Fragments to Fragmented Monumentalism 1. Hellenism and Women's Print Culture: 'The Merit of Brevity.' 2. Lucy Aikin and the Evolution of Greece 'Through Infamy to Fame.' 3. Felicia Hemans and the 'Exquisite Remains' of Modern Greece 4. Letitia Landon and the Second Thoughts of Romantic Hellenism Conclusion: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Reception of Romantic Women's Hellenism Notes Appendices Bibliography Index

...a refreshing new look at Greek influences in the Romantic period... While the three chapters on Aikin, Hemans, and Landon are examples of scholarship at its most impressive, innovative, and convincing, my favourite chapters are, after Comet's simply remarkable and articulate 'Introduction', the first chapter, 'Hellenism and Women's Print Culture', and the final pages, 'Conclusion: Elizabeth Barrett Browning and the Reception of Romantic Women's Hellenism'. No reader interested either in Romanticism or in the English reception of Greece, in any period, should miss the opportunity of studying closely this astute, concise, and engaging account by Noah Comet. K. M. Wheeler, The BARS Review

Even though the book is titled Romantic Hellenism and Women Writers (my emphasis), one of Comet's strengths is to distinguish the women from one another, showcasing each as a singularly individual author in a series of case study chapters... Most intriguing to me was Comet's work on Letitia Elizabeth Landon... He performs an especially fine reading of her poem 'The Thessalian Fountain' (1835) and, aware that it is unfamiliar and hard to find, includes a copylÈ