Still life: Modernism's turn to Greece

Kolocotroni, V. (2012) Still life: Modernism's turn to Greece. Journal of Modern Literature, 35(2), pp. 1-24. (doi: 10.2979/jmodelite.35.2.1)

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Abstract

Hellenism is a way of seeing ghosts and contemplating inanimate objects. Normally associated with the Gothic, these shadowy visions persist in modernist writings in a variety of forms, representative of distinctive and often conflicting positions on art and life. The concern with cultural legacy and the presumed license of the modern artist and intellectual to energize the present by reanimating the past amounts to more than a mere exercise in classical allusion for a learned audience. Through meditations on mythical motifs, magical objects and staged encounters between ancient rituals and contemporary crises, writers and thinkers such as Pound, Eliot, Harrison, Woolf, Freud, H.D. and Heidegger turn to Greece as the site of haunting continuities.

Item Type:Articles
Keywords:Modernism, Hellenism, classics, ekphrasis
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Kolocotroni, Dr Vassiliki
Authors: Kolocotroni, V.
Subjects:P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0080 Criticism
P Language and Literature > PR English literature
College/School:College of Arts & Humanities > School of Critical Studies > English Literature
Research Group:Modernism/Twentieth-Century/Critical Theory
Journal Name:Journal of Modern Literature
Journal Abbr.:JML
Publisher:Indiana University Press
ISSN:0022-281X
ISSN (Online):1529-1464

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