Classical Culture and the Idea of Rome in Eighteenth-Century England

This book looks at the aristocratic adoption of Roman ideals in eighteenth-century English culture.

Philip Ayres (Author)

9780521105798, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 19 March 2009

296 pages, 30 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.49 kg

Review of the hardback: 'Extremely well researched and convincingly argued, this ambitious book is a very welcome addition to scholarship. The argument is clearly thought through.' Latomus

This book looks at the aristocratic adoption of Roman ideals in eighteenth-century English culture and thought. Philip Ayres shows how, in the century following the Revolution of 1688, the ruling class promoted - by way of its patronage - a classical frame of mind embracing all the arts, on the foundations of 'liberty' and 'civic virtue'. The historical fact of a Roman Britain lent an added authenticity to a new 'Roman' present constructed by Lord Burlington and his circle. Ayres's study shows that the propensity to adopt the self-image of virtuous Romans was the attempt of a newly empowered oligarchy to dignify and vindicate itself by association with an idealized image of Republican Rome. This sense of affinity with the ideals of the free Roman Republic gave British classicism an authenticity impossible under the various versions of absolutism on the continent. Its discourse precluded any more thoroughgoing revolution by suggesting that Britain's liberty had been won by an 'oligarchy of virtue', which now defended, defined and emblematized the nation.

Preface
List of abbreviations
List of plates
1. Oligarchy of virtue - liberty and the Roman analogy
Civic virtue and the Roman analogy
Literary personae: Pope, Swift, Johnson, Thomson, Fielding, Burke
2. Virtue made visible - sensibility, sculpture, political gardens and temples
3. Britannia Romana - Romano-British archaeology: pioneers
The Roman Knights and the recruitment of the aristocracy
Architect as archaeologist: Burlington
4. Britannia Romana revived - architecture, collections, the numinous in landscape and house
5. Beyond the mainstream: classical nostalgia and freethinking
Conclusion
Appendix: books on archaeology owned by Burlington: an annotated shelf-list
Bibliography
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800 [DSBD]