The Invention of Jane Harrison (Revealing Antiquity) - Hardcover

Beard, Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674002121 ISBN 13: 9780674002128

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) is the most famous female Classicist in history, the author of books that revolutionized our understanding of Greek culture and religion. A star in the British academic world, she became the quintessential Cambridge woman--as Virginia Woolf suggested when, in A Room of One's Own, she claims to have glimpsed Harrison's ghost in the college gardens.

This lively and innovative portrayal of a fascinating woman raises the question of who wins (and how) in the competition for academic fame. Mary Beard captures Harrison's ability to create her own image. And she contrasts her story with that of Eugénie Sellers Strong, a younger contemporary and onetime intimate, the author of major work on Roman art and once a glittering figure at the British School in Rome--but who lost the race for renown. The setting for the story of Harrison's career is Classical scholarship in this period--its internal arguments and allegiances and especially the influence of the anthropological strain most strikingly exemplified by Sir James Frazer. Questioning the common criteria for identifying intellectual "influence" and "movements," Beard exposes the mythology that is embedded in the history of Classics. At the same time she provides a vivid picture of a sparkling intellectual scene. The Invention of Jane Harrison offers shrewd history and undiluted fun.

About this title

About the Author

Mary Beard has a Chair of Classics at Cambridge and is a Fellow of Newnham College. She is classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement and author of the blog “A Don’s Life”. She is also a winner of the 2008 Wolfson History Prize.

Reviews

Jane Ellen Harrison (1850-1928) was in the vanguard of the staid British academic community in the early 20th century. As Beard (classics, Cambridge) notes, she wrote and lectured about ancient Greek art and archaeology with "grace and daring." This daring lay in her willingness to expose the "seething irrationality" of the ancient world, a departure from the highly ordered, Victorian approach of her largely male peers. Harrison had a distinguished career at Cambridge, but it was in Germany that her skills as an archaeologist began to flourish. She recognized the importance of myth and ritual to ancient cultures, a groundbreaking acknowledgment in her day. Beard writes a competent, well-researched biography (the 14th book in the "Revealing Antiquity" series), but the dry, thesis-like prose falls disappointingly short of its charismatic subject. A good part of the book discusses the academic/ political shenanigans of Harrison's colleagues, dull fodder for those not privy to Cambridge's arcane hierarchy. Recommended for larger collections.DDiane Gardner Premo, Rochester P.L., NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/BEAINV_excerpt.pdf

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0674002121
• ISBN 13: 9780674002128
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256