Tivorny Wene 7 Romantic Hellenism 1 Lexe “Romanticism” sf; Romantic Hellenism i cultura an trary Phhenorsenon whose existence is widely in evidence yet which remaine ‘lasive, problematic and dificult define wih inclusive rigor. Like Roman tia, ithas often been simpified and misrepresented contrary to genera hele, i achieved expresion in forms that were diverse, paradoncal, sometimes sefsontradiceory, and often comtenerlly oe adversarial ‘elated to received modes and ideas, Like Romanticism, it never achieved articulation asa coherent philosophy; it never generated school of pract= sioners th might have advertised themselves as Romane Hellenios it was never consciously or programmatically deat by those who seem ta have pursed ce embodied ik moe creatively, Agsin Uke Romantica, i is 8 retrospecive label that yokes together for historical convenience wide ‘ange of manifestations and examples centered im and around what we now call the Romana peed but with rots that go far back int the eighteenth 1 England Rocsaiic Hellenism is + powerfial but inconstant presence ‘hat express isl in varity of mays Since it ia tendency rather than a tungible ideology, it can not be argued for or articulated, although the relevance of the Greek mode! is specifically frmalated by Shelley in the relic w Hellas where ~ in the fae os temporiing British foreign policy toward the Greek struggle fr independence, he pronocatvely las, "We ae all Greeks” ~in his essays on Christianity, on the manner ofthe alent Greeks and on Greek seubture; and, more sarty, by the painter Benjamin Robert Haydon in bis celebratory essay on the Elgin Marbles. Among English writers itemenged most richly and variously ithe work of the second generation of Remantc poets it never achieved a comparable ‘sis in the imaginative word of their peedecesvors, Insofur a it represen ted an openness and 2 creative susceptibility to the Greek example rather us Reman Hellen 9 ‘than a tess personally focused imerest in Greek art and literature, it was largely resisted by Wordsworth, Coleridge and Southey, wo preferred the ‘northem and the Christian to phenomenon they regarded as southern and ‘pagan, Italo. scemed to provide a challenge or &prumocaton 1 those who ‘subscribed f0the values ofthe patriotic and the English, sine i cull be ‘en as forcgn impertaon that representeela danger to all such racitional allegiances, whether in religious codes or architecture oF poetie dition ‘could be used as an excape from the urgencies ofthe eye and an endorse ‘ment of the sates gu or as a subversive and challenging source of alternative ‘alues. In some of its manifestation, it volved the roeovery of classic ‘models and coincided with and was simulated by that artistic phenomenon ‘known as *Neacliseisy”; yet thovs who aubscrlbd to such ideals did not see themsehes as radionalists or conservatives but “elt the exiemtent of radical departure." It eecived an impers and a point of focus inthe Elgin [Marbtes, which were remered with Turkish permission froma the Parhcnon at Athens and exhibited in London by sages in 1807, 1812 and amore Permanently after they had een parchased forthe nation in 1886, For sme year tran coincident wo the course of philhellsiss, tha i, the movement seciated to the reeonery of Greek poliieal independence; Shelley s ole: prophsctcalyeclcbrate “the great dramaof the revial of Hbety" andl Byron ‘ied in this canse while preparing for the inevitable conflict (Parry and Pro, 41a). In architecture, there wis 4 Greck Revival that began by cosssing With other styles such asthe Gothic (Chippendale achieved similar equality ‘of ste by designing chairs fn the modes of Greek and Gothic, 2s wel 8s Chinese) but by 1805 the Greek example “was the very riteran of arhi- tectural dsintion” and remained a recurring inuence on public ballings ‘until the 184084 To some extent it wis European phenomenon; heugh theze wore astional variations and she French and German versions were hy ‘no means ieetcal tothe English, the new discoveries insights an theories ‘could largely be exchanged and transmived throug the incematanal car ‘rency of warslation. Most obviously and mest potently perhaps, it informed munber of major creative works: the mahologcal poems of Kea, especially Endymion, “Hyperion,"“Lamia” and some ofthe odes: the second cans of Byron's Chie Havel’ Plrimage are Dom Juan, and sore of his Turkish tales; Shelly's Prometheus Univand amd Hels, is mythological 1, Meet Crk, The Grek Rena: Nev Cli dnd in Bie Arde Aamo Jol Mary, 92h For 8 of Gres Be alps eg Foe (Ga ol thse sol ek calc ac Dt, Revo, Re od cnr: ag enon Bemasd ays tOskad Une Dre, 160), vik130, Timorny Wen poems, especilly "The With of Ada,” nd his translations ofthe Homeric stone and Plo; and, i the sphere of art John Flaxman's illustrations of Homer and Acichylus and his designs for the pottery of "Thomas. Wetkewond. “The eommon factor 1 all these varieties of Romantic Hellenism is an interest in Greece or the Grecian model and a desire to sppeopeate i for ‘present purposes, This interest expeeses itself someximes neqatiely and Sometimes positively; sometimes as a nostalgic yearning 1 escape ino anor place and anaer age apparently more gen than the present and ‘sometimes 4s desire ta make the lesoesof the past immediatly relevant the uryencies of contemporary life; sometimes as an emphasis on the dif ferences betwcen Grveee and Fngland, sometimes as a suggestion of anal- ‘pes; sometimes as radical sometimes at conservative: sometimes ‘admiration for Athens, sometines as culation of Spartan vires; ‘sometimes us geographically specs, sometimes in terms ofa landscape and 4 sense of place buth distanced and idealized; sometimes as an inhibiting searcness of the Greek tration, sometimes as ansious homage othe gant examples of antiquity and sometimes as creatively critical engagement with tradion that is ragmented and suggestvely open to interpretation, develop- tment and vision. IF Homer could be many things wo aany reader, 0 400 ‘cou the Greek example, ‘Phe fascination of Romantic Hellenism isin its enles variety, in the Scape itofTered for views that are radically opposed. ‘Throughout the eighteenth and cay nineteenth eenturies the image of Greece and of the Grock achievement was constant refined, revised, refuted or reinterpreted through a complex and continaous process of redefinkdn, Such a proces of definition and redefiniion is well-recognized. by modem writers, pariculary whe they engage with he classical raion a ‘wunlaton or interpreters or as originators who wish to relate eratinely 10 the work ofthe past The challenge for weiers ofthe Romantic period was ot substantially diferent. They were cloner perhaps tothe encitementof the redseunery af Greece and wo its gradual substation forthe supremacy of Roman civilization and valuss. They were more inclined to register this shifting of the balance as a pretet for Hberazation; some, later, were prepared to find in the unknown an iaiation of harmonizing pousitiliis Yet, exen four awn pressing conc ees may have caused ws to exaggerate the problematic, the dfical, the burden of reading and interpretation, a& We deconstruct the achicvements of Romanticism we are OW semstvely attuned to registering more precisely than before thote troubled discord in the history of Romantic Hellenism understate by eater cites that pant Romantic Hellen 151 towvatds a continuity between Romantic and modem. ‘The discord and the harmonies must be understood as they relate 1 each other, the positive ‘schievements can now sometimes be se as Iss rad sl-confadet and more sefiandy and precariously worked for, wide the doubts, hes- ‘ations and contractions ean he frankly aek:nauledge Like ourselves writers and artists ofthe Romsntc perio were contfonted ‘ot only with the enigmaofthefasment but with he angen question of ow ‘hey should relate to «nado that forall ts appearances of comforting unary, mht ofen have Been “unimagnably different” and that eve ‘expression to a syste of vals tha ight be uncongenil if it could be reconstructed. The Greek lcs comprined cnn af Teratre sha ‘aus defined, uti aso included a much more extensive series of texts fn the form of art and architecture and especially in what Shelley called “seulpeare’s marble language” (Te Rec of hay, line £73} that could not be easily eranslated and tha, like Homer, Aeschyhs, Pao and ‘Thur oid, were subjet to the neceahies and pressures of tanta and interpretation. How the Romans attend wo make sive ofthis exer language and how they tara artistic form ane best ila by numberof sugzesine example, First, there are wo contrasting instances provided by the German at historian Johann Joachim Winckelnann and bis tanslaur, the Swiss art and aphorst Henry Fane, who masa end of Willi Blake, Winckenann {hose work was direct known to lake and Shelley) was ane of the most significant figures in the history of Romantic Hellenism. Throarh books such as Cada ier die Neca der Grchichon Vr in r Mahloey tind Bildaserbnst (Thelen ofthe Punting and Scape of he Gres 7354 wansated by Fuseli, 4765) anc Gachiche der Kun dex Arms iisery ef Ancient Art Uvanaat into French in 176, 1781, 179-105 but rot completely ino English until 1880), Winckelmann inated “a new ‘organ forthe human spirit” according to Hegel, and opened up 4 new ‘continent according to Goethe, who compared him to Columbus! His ‘combination ofthe analytical and the posi inspired a fresh understanding ‘of the principles and the achievements of Greek art notably of sculpture, 8nd helped wo ot the balance of European taste fom Rome towards Greece Winckelmann's feeling for Greek sculpture was. influenced by his comirommental theory stressing a connectin between the crate of Athens 2 Vee ncn by Weber Pc yn Wi sh, Tt Rene Sn snd Poy hg roied Lua: Mca, 938) Ged eal cn od (Gomera em, Onda td Toms: Den ‘Dimon, 93h p95 Fe132 Tiworiy Weae and its democrat inetsions. Aldhough he invested ernotionaly an! imtel- lectin the superiority ofthe Greek example, his scorer of the neglec> ted artic virtues of Cree as contioned an im part compromized by the fact that it wok place in Kay His intwiive and marinate approach i easly lsirated by his account of the Tors Bkedewe (1750; translated by Fasc, 17) which ein effect pese poem. In the eorlusion to Histary of Arte soggethely explain the pleasure andthe challenge of such imaginal ve reconstruction by comparing hirsel w “a maiden, standing on the shore ‘ofthe ocean” wha “follows with teufel eyes er departing lover with no hone of ever seeing him again" The archisarian as Ariadne embraces his readers and fellow interpreters ofthe classical taion ina wistful analogy that focuses on the campensting faculty of desir: “Lik hat ving mae, we too have, a8 were, nothing but shadowy outine ofthe objet of our ‘shes, but that er distinctness aman only a more earnest longing for ‘hate hae lost and we stay the copies ofthe orginal more sentinel than we should hive done the originals themselves if'we had been in full possesion of them.” Winckelmann admis tha the “euorty of aniguly ‘redetermines our judgments” and that our imaginative projections ean be ss peranly sealing 26 “an lterview with spiris dat we encourage ‘ursclies 10 sce “hen there is noi 4 be nce,” bute Bly asserts that “he win lays proposes 1 himself fil mac wl by serine for moh ‘perceive something." So his rea history ends with a curious dying fll and the sure ofits poetic prise is strange guid and rendered hesitant by the indeterminacy and obliquenes of its final elim. oral his git, Wincclnann was a hiscoran rather than a excaive atin. ‘The altenativeperspetine i pronided by Fuse hischak and sepia wash sete “The Artist im Despair aver the Magnitude of Antique Fragments” (€. 177880), Here Fase presets an image ofthe Fly and insficleney of the modern crestor when convonted with the weighty remins of « ‘wsion that abe, enigmatic and overwhelming. Unlike Winkelmann, Funes ait is ot stimulated by Sedmact or a rosalgia ora golden amd superior pas insted, he somewhat androgynous fe, nolonge yarn ing Aradve, sis ditonsolate and threatened, ciproporionatelymiscale beside antl fot surreally surmounted by # lant ight hand with Inder finger pointing meaningfully upward. Perhaps this is evidence of Personal neurosis but it might also be seem as a syyplom ofa culurl crisis that was experienced especialy hy writers and arias for whom the Greek achievement was both an unreachable ial an a ystee that could not now > Wine: Wn Art Dad ria Lan: Pad 972, Borate Heltnons 153 bbe reassembled or understood as a whobe. Fuseli' anst experiences it ‘rould seem, tht burden of the pas that as been increasingly identified ‘with dhe arte selfconscionsness of the madern witer* That burden can also be identified in Keats, nombere more acutely or with greater existential profanliy than in "The Fall of Fyperioa” where, confronted by the Muse, he struggles with a sense of his owr inadequacy to translate the Greek myth im effective poetic fomm ina contemporary world of misery, heartbreak snd challenging political change, That life-or-de dialogue is conducted oi the steps of temple that dwarfs the poct and troubles his sense of poetic lenity and purpose; this dauncing edifice isa nightmare version of those peacefl Grecian temples pictured by Claude and Poussin that Keats associ ates claewhere vith the “happy pietis" of ld religion a dhat i the “Ode to Payche” he vows to reconstruct i his ome min "The difcaty of imagining the pas i at the center of Keates “Odeo Grecian Urn.” This um fe product ofthat rediscovery of the art of Greck powery that wis stimulated by the colecting of Greek vases in Sic, ‘translated owe prints by the work of atts such a D'Hancanvle, Tisch. ‘beim, "Thomas Kirk and Hlensy Moses, and disemiaated and) co ‘mersilined by the business acumen of Josiah We fgwood through the agency ‘of Flaxman’s interpretations. The misc silnt “historian” and the et makes strenuous effort to interpre its “legend.” The wm Keats det» ches with such precision of detsil dacs aot corespond to any specific ‘model but as been compositely assembled from a sariety of sources includ ing the Sosibion Vase of which Keats made a drawing, The aesthetics of ‘composition may sem toconfarm tote practices of cightcenth=cc mut are, ss docs the ameburon to the um feelf ofa convenicntly epgnimmatiTestae faethe reader oc the observer. Yet, at mote recent entician has demoa- strated, the quotable sonarity ofthe las ines overlays and ever conceals & Sexual and interpretative enigma that cannot easly be resolved. At the center of the poem which at first sight appear. 10 conchade with such raphade and unhesitant finality we confront an absence and a silence both tnovbling and unresponsive. The "historian" can offer no further evidence. Like all historians and histories, t necessary aves room for forther imerpretation. In his mythological poems Keats feequenly eahibits a extraordinary 1 ee Hcy Pes ors (Lorde: Tat Gary, 19) pte 1. ft, hg154 Tinornty Weow imaginative sig to reconstrct “the realm. /of Flora, and ol Pan” or the"Faurs and Dryas / Coming with sfiest ruse dough the wees or “the swift bound / Of Bacebus fo his chariot: yt sch ntimations of oy sere dificult stain and were oie allowed or challenged by "A sense rea things” that "ie 4 my teas would bear alone / My soul 10 tothingnes” (Slop and Poet,” tines 107-2; “I stood tpt.” lines 1g}-45 “Sleep and Poetry.” lines 334-8, 157-0) Keats responded to this sense of unceaiy eal eye the preface wo Eni he ave wice to sense of fire and inadequacy ~"T hupe I havent to Ie day touched the beauifl anthology of Greens, and dled it brighincss” — ‘ile he increasingly anomie the itatons of the “eating legend” (Ode on 3 Grecin Ure,” in ) and aspired toa more naked and secian Manncr™ (ats 1 307) Here ate can seme pot only the sre Sith ims ut the ransom from one move of Greekness to another TpyhelogclselCindulgence is replaced by the es compromising exaeyple Ofte Eigin Marbies he hd st scm a the Btsh Museum in 1817 when the caused his most dizzy pain / That mingles Grecian granu with the re / Wasting of ll Tame” On Seeing the Elgin Marbles.” fines 113 Fal, and by way ofconrast with Keats there the ease of Shelly at Pompe Shee had many eset about the ancient Greeks and he wm wel wine of the Finan of Athenian democracy, yet he also regarded the Grcehs asthe founders of mach that wan est in Western cine, "loro Beings shom the imagination sont refuses to igure {0 itself as telonging to our kind” (Pr, p. 210) In his “Essay on the Mangos of the Ancient Gree” he sympathetically expan, without ‘semearlly approning, dhe strog hosel element hv Athesion soe tan its significance for an informed understanding ofthe works of Plato, paricolny TeSympisia which had been treated with ewpherisn and ‘eso by its mast recent tanshtor “There is no book which shows the Greeks precy as dey were; they seem all writen for children, wih the ‘auson Oat no practice or sentiment highly inconistent with one present smanners shoul! be mentioned les those manners should receive outage and olion” Pr, p. 210) One of the dangers of Romance Teles seas the tendons to raat the ancient Greeks into replications of a sees 10 Bartley (author of Las Vnaps de jse Amachanis om Ge {u788) “never forges that he 6 & Chvisian ands Prentimn,” bile Wieland “ctrses sno many politcal prejudices” (i the Histy of Asthon {17667 1704D (Proc, p. 210). The theres ofthe Gresks mnust be * the wanton Te Sepang yn nos diene eget ote tn hed Ton Torin ey eed oy eae Romantic Heim as scknowledged, whatever the discomforts o the shack to propriety: “For the Greeks: of the Pericean age were widely diferent from us. His 19 be lamented that no madera writer has hitherto dared ta show them exactly as they were.” Although Shelley acknowledged this ubidgcable gaps between the Greeks af the classical age andthe inhabitants of modem Europe, he also believed that the Greeks had achieved unity of cing and a coherence of existence that fad sinee been lant Irgely under the influence of Chisianiy.) In Janeary 1819, when he was ving at Naples, he visited the nearby city of Pompeii (rt excavated in 1748), which was the subjcet of an kasd study by JP. Gandy and Wiliam Gel (1817-19) and of Macaulay's Cam- bridge prize poem of 189, which hal inspired powerful personal responses from Goethe, Chatenubriand and Madame de Stal atioog many others, and whieh would later be irettal by Lanuartine and Leopardi! Tike 3 number of significant Romantic Hellenitstineluing Winckelsann and Geethe), Shelley never reached Greece, and his experience of Hay wih its “arm and radiant atmosphere which is interfosed through all things” strongly inthuenced bis views of clsical Greece und helped to shape poems such as Fipsyhidn with its Elysian ae exoic and erate “Under the ro of ‘ue Ionian weather" (line 542). His response to “the city sintered” a8 ‘odioned by his belie (vised in fat) hat Pompei had ce a CGircek seulement, and he translated ltslan into Gredk through am intense act of ‘imaginative interpretation: “This scone was whut the Grecks beheld. They lived in harmony’ with nature, A the interstices of their incomparable col- ns, were portals as it mere to amit the spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe Ifsuch is Pompei, what was Athens” (Lear, 93). Although Shelley makes. central and ereative use ofthe volcan in other ‘poems such ae Prmchont Undeund and “Orde to Naples,” in this ease he seems unaware of the ironies in his celebration of the Greek idea. is readiness to make this intginaivereeonsruction owes much to his strong desive to reanimate the past and in particular to approach the rns of slansical antiiy not assigns of man's destructive tendency bu a indica ‘ons of 4 poteral as yet unfullled 0 in Lam and Cyohna (resced as The comple cio» Pannen epg aos Ge ha ype in ‘ou he Recor tod radoed promt try Sete eed St ‘hove nh dl or know Gc "ug me eC yey nas “stn compere onsite oro man” 9 See Timea Wath, *Sickey ad she Reon Ho" a Stas Reni 5 ssrB 2 So Rat Pre “Meradncam ad Lens Tats" Magee ts a 5 pars sce a Welgane Leppnen, Pps ad Fr Lada Hk Bos i136 Tiworuy Wen Rev of lam) bis Greek hero Laon identifies the “dwellings ofa race of ‘ighter men” fine 759) in the “broken tombs and columns riven” (ine 754) ofan Argos il subjct to Ontoman rale and incrpects the language (Of thse runs sgn that “Such ean has heen, aa such may yet become! / Ay wiser, greater, gentler, even than they” (lines 766-7). Ba ever this tempt to apply the lessons of anigity reaches its climax wit an image of ‘volcanic eruption i which the mle is compared oa suiphoros hill” ‘huts burst and fill / The world with leansing ire” ines 785-8), Phe ‘more pastoral tone of the letter on Pompei with its emphasis on harmonious environment may have been influenced by Schiegt’s endiusiastc account of the performance of Greek drama “which could only be exhibired under an obsirocted shy" ‘The supposed Greck city was attractive ty Shelley because i represented nt alkematve 1 the “Cimmerian gloom” and smoke that eharac> terized 0 many maxlem cities, most notoriously London, which even pro- vided point of comparison for the infernal city “Heli cty-mch like Tandon” [Peter Bell the Third, line 147) Shelley's reconsruction of the Greek flr sat from 4 perspective that enepurages him to euncentate ot ‘nig politcal onzinization or the details of it architecture but on is ‘elaondip withthe natural wold, t would nod le easy to find an example fof ety that had Lessin common with a “populous mannlacuringdirpated town” (Lerers, 1, 197) such as Notingham. with its “timine-asted Inabiems” (id, 1, 213) oc, more surprisingly, Keswick, mhere “tho the face of the county s lovely the pale are detestable” (iid, 1, 223). In Keswick the “manufacturers with ther contamination have crept into the Peaceful vale and deformed the loveliness of Nature with buntan taint ‘aherwise, “the Christin Heaven (vith is Half would be tw no paradise, but such a scene as this” (ih, 1, 200-1). Here, a so often in Shelly, the "Essian posses itirnated by the landscape are denied and subverted by the contaminating presence of man. By camrast, the very emptiness of Pornpii provides scope fr concentration on the harmonizing ponies (athe lke Wordswonh’s view of London from Westminster Bridge as x ‘iy, sil liering, and smokeless: tis purified, temporarily a est, bath Auras Win Sen, Foon th mass Kan od Ler Deel Vem, ol, pblshed opt out no En ae Cavs of Lar Dra 4t ad Lento) ak 1h. ‘The erence bw kes 3 ete ‘Sel de alte pee af Ge heat an te py ots ‘te des Gres ema Se ai he me gel owt ste 1 a he Serotec ef eral enone The vie of te ata Foy SF mete hae A be fs hy hs ne Romantic Hallentm 157 ofthe disfiguring wocal an political syoptoms of modern capitalist society and of “the poor, lveles,ever-ansious crowd” (Coleridge's phrase) that presses uncomfortably upon the imagination and the sci conscience. It ‘would be unjust to complain that Shelley licked such a conscience since the ‘evidence of his life and his work demonstrates the apposite so fully ad so clearly, yet itis worth ohsersing how hie Helleniing tendency sul, him aay from the fc of nineteenth-century urbanleation towards an idealized alternative where he ean people wth his wishes vacancy and oblivion. This preference led im to lve in Italian cites such as Pisa, to celebrate the Tepublie of Athens asa model for poetie and philosophical eeativiy i the preface to Promctlew Uinboand, o compose the dion! for long-disonce perspectives) af “Lines Written among the Exganean Hills it aso inspired le to eeate in the “Ode w» Naples” (1830) a poem that built upon the posite experience of visting the ghost town of Pompei, ake it w the histony of the Elysian city of Naples (tel 4 Grek fousdation as Shelley inmate by calling ie “Metropol of x rained Paradive”), anc andthe present tothe past and the future by eclebating the recent mews of the proclamation of a Constitutional Gorenament at Naples, a "The rots of Romantic Hellenism are distinct from that revaluation of the classical radion asociated with the Renaissance. Alhough presne origins are hard ro tabs, the growth of Hellenism received muah of ts impetus from a series of discoveries ur rediscoveres, the most significant of which may have been the gradual recognition of Greece sel, wgether with 3 slowly developing challenge 0 the reigning authority fa culture lrgey semtered on Rome. This redstburion of cultural forces canbe traced bach in part so English and French travellers in Greece in the le seventeenth and extly eighteenth centuries who provided a new impetus tovadds an abstract se of landscapes but of topographical and sci spect.” Hy the 2 Fare eC A Hay “The Tho Py 1st. ara ‘Wain Sid) 05-28 SIE War Hg on Tra mG hr Nr Et “et dlc Rape pce he pr 0, Clipe fe Gana 18240, ‘incon Stl of Ck ce a A193 Pad Ped, Patel Rr ‘he abet Contry Teer a apr athe Man” Bi fh Niwot Pai “Lima 60 (on 4 Jamct Mor, Te Liane ol te Rie No enim in Eglin lio he Now at Pa Ei 29-00 Fa ‘Muna Tiguan, The Rae) of Gr They and Pat ana Ev ond: Ts and Ha 8, Rd Seca, Beary pans ‘ae Harada Pgh158 = Timorny Wepe carly nineteenth century, Greece was no longer as remote and unfamiliar as i once had been, and the Napoleonic Wars made it even more attractive to those who were unable to pursue the more traditional itineraries of the Grand Tour. Byron’s friend Hobhouse reported, ‘“Attica,..swarms with travellers..and...a few more years may furnish the Piraeus with all the accommodations of a fashionable watering-place,” while in 1814 C.J. Blom- ficld declared anonymously in the Quarterly Review: “No man is now accoun= ted a traveller, who has not bathed in the Eurotas and tasted the olives of Attica” (Quarterly Review 11|1814]:458). This emphasis on the empirical experience of Greece reached its culmination and its greatest publicity in the figure of Byron who prided himself on his personal knowledge of the plain of Troy where he stood “daily, for more than a month” and “venerated the grand original as the truth of history (in the material facts) and of place.” (Letters and Journals, vi, 21-2).!" Byron insisted on his direct personal knowledge in presenting the Grecian world in a perspective that was often bifocal: for instance, Scotland and Homer are combined in the line “And Loch-na-gar with Ida looked oer Troy.” Topographical certitude enabled him to deflate the untroubled simplicities of Wordsworth’s pic- turesque presentation of Greece as a land of lush pastoral variety “Under a cope of variegated sky”; it also allowed him to defend the accuracy of Pope’s translation by matching it against particulars such as the “glow” of the night sky at Troy (Letters and Journals, tv, 325-6). Byron was all too acutely aware that the plight of Greece offered opportunities to unscrupulous dealers in sentimental patriotism and its tokens; he himself had once considered pur= cchasing the island of Ithaca and he had been offered the plain of Marathon for about nine hundred pounds, His contempt for the depredations of Lord Elgin and the collaboration of the English art-lover is given full expression in The Cure of Mineroa and in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812). The second canto of Childe Harold makes a virtue out of authenticity and poetic capital ‘out of Byron’s travels across the map of Grecee; here and in the ‘Turkish tales he combines evoticism with a sense of history and of place and a responsiveness to contemporary political realities. ‘These poems have achieved 4 more durable celebrity than many other records of first-hand ‘experiences in Greece and the Levant, but they are the products of a ‘continuing tradition that included travel writers and writers of verse such as William Falconer (whose The Shipwreck [1762] Byron particularly admired); "" For Troy, see Terence Spencer, “Robert Wood and the Problem of Tso,” in Formal of the Warbwer and Conréanld Invites 20 (+957): 75-105. For topographical authenticity, sce Web, English Romantic Hellenism i7oo-rfey (Manchester and New York: Manches- ter University Press and Bares and Noble, 1982); pp. 8-9, hereafter cited as eit Romantic Hellenism 159 topographers such as William Gell (whose The Ninerary of Greece [181 1] was reviewed by Byron); and architects and archaeologists such as James Stuart and Nicholas Revett whose meticulously illustrated Antiquities of Athens (five volumes between 1762 and 1830) initiated a new era in the study of classical architecture and left its mark on English churches and public buildings.? ‘Byron's uncompromising commitment to fact also led him to remind his readers that the language of modern Greece was Romaic. He translated several poems from the Romaic including the “War Song” of Constantine Rhigas, the patriotic poet and revolutionary who had been executed by the Turks in 1798, He also included lists of modern Greek authors and exam- ples of Romaic with translations in the notes to Childe Harold. ‘This emphasis on language sometimes allowed him to exploit the contrast between ancient and modern by drawing attention to the linguistic difference. In the second canto of Don Juan the eponymous hero is washed ashore om one of the “wild and smaller Cyclades” where he attracts the attention of Haidée, much as Odysseus encounters Nausicaa in Homer, The parallel is both developed and deliberately counterpointed in a variety of ways, not least by Byron's Strong assertion of physiological imperatives and by his insistence on Juan’s linguistic difficulties as he is addressed “in good modern Greek, / With an Jonian accent, low and sweet” (lines 1198-9). “Being no Grecian” (line 202) Juan does not understand but, as every public schoolboy would certainly have known, “Grecian” could mean not only a Greek but a classical scholar; here Byron brings into play both the ambiguity of the word and the ambivalent attitudes of the academy towards the language of the Greeks (according to C. J. Blomfield, it was “one of the most barbarous dialects of modern Europe” [Quarterly Review, 11(181 4):459]). One of the effects of this insistence on Romaic is to place the events of the narrative very tangibly ina society that is a contemporary reality rather than a literary reconstruction or an abstract ideal. Byron’s decoding of the Greck language is related to his demystifying of Greck mythology; both are part of a philosophy that insists ‘on the value of the present and the immediate, on life experienced directly rather than refracted through literature, and on the strength of the vernacu- Jar rather than the more exclusive attributes of the classical language. A like concentration on authenticity marked a number of books on Homer that approached his poems in the light of the growing awareness of the new "2 "The English travelers were Charles Perry, Richard Pococke, Robert Woot, Richard Chandler, J. B. 8. Morrity, E- D. Clarke and (after Byron's excursion) Faward Doxiwell, ‘T, §. Hughes and H. W. Williams. Topographical poets included Thomas Lisle, W. R Wright, 1D. Carlyle, Richard Polwhele, Charles: Kelsall and William Haygarth. Other notable topographers included William Leake, For Byron's review of Leake, see Collected ‘Miscellanawus Prove, ed, Andrew Nicholson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), pp- 48=s0.