British Aestheticism and Ancient Greece: Hellenism, Reception, Gods in Exile (review)

In one of the illustrations in Stefano Evangelista's study of British Aestheticism and ancient Greek culture, Oscar Wilde, in full evening suit and with a rather large sunflower campily held, reclines while starring into a watery pool of self-reflection, a Narcissus for the nineties. The image, which is not discussed in any detail in the text, is an apt motif for the aesthetic, classical and identity-forming nature of the relationship between Hellenism, scholarship and creativity explored by this book. For what interests this investigation into the ways in which classical Greek culture was received, appropriated and recreated in the late-Victorian period are the specific associations of ancient ideas in Decadent formations. In four closely argued and wellresearched case studies as well as in a scene-setting introduction and a brief but significant conclusion, Evangelista seeks to reposition our understanding of the role, pursuit and relevance of classical knowledge and ways of knowing the classical for the fin-de-siècle period. The case studies may take individuals whose position in our approaches to Decadent and aesthetic cultures is central (Pater, Wilde) but they also seek to align this interpretation with a much broader sense of the literature influenced by and responsive to such scholarly centrality, particularly through two interesting chapters on Vernon Lee and Michael Field.

In the introduction, Evangelista lays down his critical approach in clear and precise terms. He argues that studies of this period most "often dwell on difference rather than continuity." While making clear that the nature of aesthetic and Decadent writers means it is difficult (and would in some senses be anachronistic) to claim they belonged to a specific school, Evangelista argues that through understanding their approach to and use of classical knowledge in their work we can begin to appreciate something of such continuities in style, scholarship and substance. As Evangelista puts it, he wants to "come back to the fundamental questions of how we know ancient Greece and what we do with this knowledge" (emphases in original). The epistemological framework of the text is therefore primarily concerned with both the readings of the past undertaken by fin-de-siècle writers and our rereadings of that knowledge in their work. As Evangelista reads it, this reflects a "perverse economy" in which gratification is sought from "incompletion, partiality, impurity and uncertainty." Dealing consciously with the fragmentary nature of the period about which he writes and the partial and selective nature of that period's awareness of historical evidence to support its own interpretation, Evangelista provides a series of chapters that build fragmentation into a picture that draws strength from its own gaps, inconsistencies and margins of error. The "instability of epistemologies" thus itself serves as a means of interpretative paradigm. While this knowledge might appear speculative and open to the frailties of the public-private dialogics of representation in aesthetic thought and identity more generally at the turn of the century, Evangelista makes a compelling case for the renewed possibilities of reinterpreting the familiar through this classical lens. Although the introduction attempts to provide a long-view approach to some of the themes articulated throughout the book and draws roots from Romanticism and the Victorian period more generally, it is the precision with which Evangelista identifies the post-Paterian 1880s and 1890s as a turning point for his argument that adds depth to the approach. Similarly, the openness with which Evangelista asserts that his reading, although chronological, is not teleological and is instead based on a far more "complex edifice" gives the reader confidence that his text is illustrative of a case that may be made based on this evidence but is not attempting exclusivity in its reading. Such critical transparency is important throughout but especially in Evangelista's concluding chapter and its use of a spectral motif to consider Vernon Lee's awareness of an "inexhaustible interplay of reception and invention."

Lee provides the context of the...