Beard the Blog

What were the papers like at the APA? Several people have asked -- and the fact is that I didn’t actually go to any except my own, and those in my own panel. I wasn’t buried away interviewing, like some (though I did interview two potential graduate students for Cambridge).

No, I was sitting in my room writing an essay for a catalogue to go with an exhibition about the Roman Triumph, due to open in the Colosseum in the spring (it looks a good show by the way, for anyone who is going to be in Rome). My theme was fraud and deception at the triumph – including those marvellous stories of Roman emperors who dressed up fake prisoners to adorn their processions, or Domitian who, in the absence of any good spoils raided his own palace furniture store and  paraded that.  OK this should have been a piece of cake, but it still took me more than a day to put together.

Anyway my panel was called “From Classical Tradition to Receptions Studies: four national perspectives” – featuring me, Jim Porter from Michigan (on “Hellenism and Modernity”), Ernst Schmidt from Tübingen (on “The German rediscovery of Vergil in the Early 20th Century’) and Alessandro Barchiesi from Stanford (on whom more later).

So how did it go?

I was quite happy with how my paper turned out in the end. I focussed on Alf Williams and Ann Yearsley (the poet milkmaid) as examples. But I was trying to make two points. The first was, as I mentioned in my earlier post, that British Classics isn’t (and wasn’t) a unitary phenomenon, a toffs-only subject, a definer of exclusive elite culture. The second point was to query the implications of that. When working class autodidacts took up Classics was that a sign of acquiescence in the dominant elite culture, or was it a challenge to it? Did they offer different a different kind of engagement with Classics from that of the public school and Oxbridge elite?

Barchiesi gave an interesting account of a novel by Sebastiano Vassalli, Un infinito numero (I haven’t read it, but from his account, it is set in the reign of Augustus, featuring Vergil and Maecenas and the opposition between Etruscan and Roman culture. But, as I understood it, his main point was that, unlike Britain, Italy hadn’t traditionally used fictional recreations of ancient Rome as a means of defining its own cultural identity. Italy hasn’t produced a stream of Bulwyer Lyttons, Ben Hurs, Rosemary Sutcliffes etc.

An interesting point, but I wasn’t sure that it was entirely true. Or, to put it another way, it is probably true for novels in the strict sense. But not for other forms of fictional recreations, film, opera, art etc. I mean the first Last Day of Pompeii was not Bulwer Lytton’s, but an opera in Naples (with a rather different plot – apart from the end, obviously).

The other main thing that came home to me at the conference was that this blog is now much better known than anything else I’ve ever done. When I checked in to the conference, the guy behind the desk said “Are you Mary Beard?” “Yes,” I replied, fancying that he might be going on to say how much he’s enjoyed what I’d written on Roman Religion, the Roman Triumph, the Parthenon . . .  In fact he just smiled and said “You write a blog”.

So from now on, it’s “Beard the Blog” as the Welsh might say.

Comments

[Mary]

I agree, it's a bit low key at the moment. But my essay has just been translated into Italian, so it is going ahead. Here are some basic details:

http://www.teknemedia.net/fiere/dettaglio_news.html?newsId=27679

[trandell]

Mary Beard's comment about an exhibition on The Roman Triumph in the Spring in Rome: I cannot find any reference to this exhibition in the usual sites nor was there any reference to the exhibition on the Colosseum website.

Can you pst/send details of the exhibition referred to in the blog 10th. Jan 2008.

[Paul Potts]

Dear Jenny,

If I suggest that there is something "genetic" about learning languages (like music) in disagreement with you, that is not to agree with the rest of what Lord Truth purports to say. There are people who can "pick up" languages without much apparent effort, and converse easily. There are others who sweat away at the grammar and the literature who are lost when confronted with, say, a conversation in a pub. Like music, sure it's fun, but improvising jazz-style is not to be achieved by learning to play bits of Bach or Chopin. It is not given to everyone to learn a language in that sense, even their own. My sister failed GCE English Language twice, but can certainly read and write and talk like an expert. She doesn't understand me, though, but she's brilliant at pretending to.

Paulo

[Paulo]

There was a St Dogmael (6th century) who was revered in Dyfed as well as Anglesey, and Brittany. Apparently he was good at teaching children to walk. Well, whatever the etymology, you can henceforth be Blogmaer (not yet sainted), good at teaching classicists to think.

Paulo

[Jenny]

"Learning languages, like music is often genetic."
I beg to differ. They're both very difficult and very rewarding things to do, but anyone can learn a language when they really have to, while some of us will never reach much of a standard in music. Doesn't mean it isn't fun trying, though.

[Jackie]

Lord Truth does conjure up a wonderful picture! The eminent Professor Beard knocking back pints of whisky! No need for her breathliser then.

[dr venables preller]

Lord Truth makes some interesting points. Whilst some may baulk at the idea of knowledge of matters classical being wholly class-linked, there seems little doubt as to the usefulness of such knwledge for allegory, analogy or metaphor and of proxy possibilities in conversation on levels which might be uncomfortable if directly related to modern life experience.

If the ability to converse inoffensively on sometimes disturbing issues is better enabled by an understanding of what some may call an elite subject, there could be a sound case for keeping it that way, and finally removing any implied taint from the E-word.

[Lord Truth]

Reading about the chicanery involving Roman'Triumphs'suggests that not only were ancient statues painted in exaggerated Technicolor hues but that the whole business resembled a Hollywood production.And with this in mind I ask-what about the male appearance? In films Robert Taylor always wore those rather fetching knee length skirt things with legs and chest smoother than Marlene Deitrich-What about the reality-after all a strigil would work much better on hairless flesh-so was body hair-a sign anyway of the despised hairy barbarian -removed?And sex slaves would often have been painted and tattoed to stimulate jaded appetites but what about important males?
Did Augustus really open the Colosseum with the sun glinting on his bald pate and silvery locks,shadows under his wrinkled eyes from the nights debauch (how old he looks)-or was he given a makeover of heroic proportions,making him with his mascara, lipstick and blonde wig a totally unreal statue -like creature?

I find it unsettling to again come across Beards obsessional antics regarding the presumed elitism of her speciality.Once again she writes of 'Toffs' and queries the position and attitudes of the lower classes' to classical studies.How deeply the niggerdom of British class -as Mailer once indicated, infects us all. How desperately she attempts to bring herself down to the level of the common man!One sees her on her jaunts,a sturdy,not to be trifled with figure,propping up the bar,pouring down pints with her academic mates,thrusting her empty whisky glass at the barman with a leering request for 'two fingers please',pausing only to gasp'God I'm bursting for a piss-Anyone know where the nearest bog is?
We have certainly come a long way since Rupert Brookian queers trailed lily white hands in the limpid waters of the Cam...
The reality of the Classics and class in Britain is surely simple. It always was-and possibly is reemerging-as a powerful unifying and class definer,separating the truly educated from the rest.
In Britain its knowledge could only be obtained from Public(private) schools or Grammar schools-(an expensive 10 pounds a year prewar plus uniform and train fares- even if your accent didnt keep you out)
Its knowledge may not have been displayed too openly by the elites but was always available as a powerful weapon,kept in reserve like Big Bertha,to cut down any perky counter jumper in a smart suit.
Learning languages, like music is often genetic.If someone from the lower orders had this knack and access to the books there would have been first the same pleasure as in in doing crossword puzzles,then as if passing through a flimsy curtain the entry into a glorious timeless sun drenched perfect world whose liguistic absolutes provided a structure that allowed one to rise above the harsh inequalities of ones reality-and after all it was Marcus Aurelius who said we live in our minds.
Classical studies is ,with Marxism, science,religion and music, one of the five supreme mental drugs the human monkey has created,all allowing the socially dispossed,the outsiders to soar above the shadow of their night and the misery of their condition.Sadly ,the magic of them all,except the last ,has crumbled to dust.

[Mary]

OK -- just to fight back a bit against Mr Gamberini...
I was thinking of things like Cesare Maccari's paintings (eg Cicero denouncing Catiline now in the Palazzo Madama).. and using the (ancient) Pantheon as the last resting place of Italian heroes from Raphael (I know, not technically "Italian") to the late nineteenth-century kings.

[F.Gamberini]

There’s a lot that could be said concerning the way antiquity (or antiquities, for the might be more than one) has survived or been resurrected in Italy. How Latinity and a broader Mediterraneity affect the look and “feel” of the country is for poets, writers, and photographers to evoke. Let’s leave the comparison with Britain aside; if the issue simply concerns the recreation of ancient Rome for national purposes I think I can see what Barchiesi might be getting at, and might be inclined to agree with him.
Let’s look at the novel he quotes. From the link you provide it’s quite easy to see what it’s about. Virgil and his assistant set off in search of an Etruscan seer who knows all about the origins of Rome. The revealed vision, however, turns out to be not at all complimentary to the city’s founders, and on his return Virgil will compose a completely different account. Obviously there will be more to it than that in terms of the interaction between the two cultures, but the point is that we would seem to have no glorification here –rather a (politically correct, if you like) deconstruction of a a foundation myth.
But it’s not really the Italian history of the detailed reception of antiquity we are discussing, rather how the popular consciousness has been affected by Romanitas (and more specifically, fictional recreations of ancient Rome)in the modern age. Rome-rhetoric goes back a long way of course, and received new impetus under fascism, but I would argue that one cannot reach any simple conclusions from that. Let’s look at the cultural areas concerned.
Opera. Effect on the popular consciousness? Absolute zero, at least nowadays. What I find more relevant than the 1825 Last Day of Pompeii is the fact that Verdi, the composer of the period of unification, seems to have devoted just one of his works (Attila) to ancient Rome.
Art? I know of nothing after Piranesi and the romantic painters (many of them foreign) of classical landscapes and architectectural medleys (ruins, that is, in both cases). A rather quiet contribution to the national identity. De Chrico later inserted classicism brilliantly in his surrealist vision –you could reconnect this to the country’s mostly Roman architectural tradition, but it’s really part of the meditative observation of atmosphere I mentioned above.
Film? Yes, there was the explosion of Sword-and-Sandal in the fifties –but it’s really a self-parodying genre, whether deliberately or unintentionally. Most of these films were in any case mythological rather than historical. Favourite titles that say it all: “Maciste versus the Monsters” and “Maciste, Hercules, Samson, and Ursus the Invincibles”.
What of fascism? I know of the film “Scipione l’ Africano”. Then there’s Respighi and The Foro Italico (previously Foro Mussolini)sports complex –still bombastic in placess, but no-one should want to argue with the beauty of the Stadium of Marbles. What else was there?
Of course there is much, much more that could be said in detail. Antiquity has been preserved or has resurfaced in many forms throughout Italian history. But I think it can be said that, in the land that has Rome as its capital, the use of fictional representations of ancient Rome for national purposes has been remarkably sporadic.

[SW Foska]

The true formula of the algorithm Working classes/Imperialism will be unveiled between 26-28 June at an international interdisciplinary conference in Preston. Details on IHR website.
I love abc's posting style.

[abc]

dashing out to have a drink with mum after an idiot at school corrected me for saying garlic pills instead of raw garlic (cures for depression) - in case I didn't add the welsh mary would be lovely and altogether diff to emps and more like Jane Harrison wh woz brill bk. She's in garage. Gotta go

[anthony alcock]

Why should 'working class' classicists should even think of accepting or presenting a challenge to the dominant elite ? I grew up in 'working class' Liverpool and was offered the possibility of learning Latin and Greek at a Jesuit school. Nobody for miles around (apart from the priests in the school) had the faintest idea what 'classics' was, and I never really understood why this strange word was used of Greek and Latin. I did them because I wanted to. It also amused me that the priests and lay teachers did not like somebody from the local neighbourhood (the parish where Gerard Manley Hopkins was exiled) was better at these subjects than the kids who came from the prep school attached to the school. Maybe Alf was set on learning as much Greek as the mythical Greek blacksmith invented by Richard Bentley: one of the foremost Greek scholars of his day, Bentley was once claimed that the average Greek blacksmith had known more Greek than he did. At least that's what I remember from somewhere. Do you think that Porson was reinforcing the dominant elite by doing classics ? After all he was hardly a toff.

[abc]

I've actually laughed for the first time in two years. Amazing that. There are no bloody stairs here. We have "lifts". Oh and it's £700K + pension. Make sure you match and triple it.

[Chuck Jones]

We're collecting blog entries on this year's AIA/APA meeting at the Ancient World Bloggers Group Blog:
http://ancientworldbloggers.blogspot.com/2008/01/blogging-aiaapa.html

[Xjy]

Well, given that the usual routine for naming the gaffers at the Old Black Lion on Stryd y Bont (Bridge St) in Aberystwyth was "Dai Cabbage", "Dai Lobster" etc, I think it might have to be "Mair Blog" for you, unless the feminine makes it "Mair Flog" (pronounced Vlog) of course (my Welsh informant is still on holiday, unfortunately...).

Till I'm told otherwise, I'll plump for Mair Flog, I think ;-)

And please don't tease! Re your paper, were working-class classicists a challenge or a cop-out? Was their engagement different?

It might be worth mentioning that the life of a milkmaid in Sweden until almost the middle of the 20th century was horrifying. Milk was referred to by those caring to think about the conditions it was produced in as "vita piskan" - "the white whip". It wasn't just the climate, the poverty and the indifference of the farmers to their labourers, it was the almost unavoidable infection with and early death by tuberculosis. Some villages in northern Sweden lost a third of their people through TB up to the 1930s.

So surviving the white whip and learning Latin into the bargain was quite a feat.

[ricardo moraes]

and Ricardo The Blog always quotes you, Beard the Blog. Thank you and a very good year.

[The Worst of Perth]

Beard The Blog in her den.