Edith Hall

Henry Stead

A People’s History of Classics explores the influence of the classical past on the lives of working-class people, whose voices have been almost completely excluded from previous histories of classical scholarship and pedagogy, in Britain and Ireland from the late 17th to the early 20th century. This volume challenges the prevailing scholarly and public assumption that the intimate link between the exclusive intellectual culture of British elites and the study of the ancient Greeks and Romans and their languages meant that working-class culture was a ‘Classics-Free Zone’. Making use of diverse sources of information, both published and unpublished, in archives, museums and libraries across the United Kingdom and Ireland, Hall and Stead examine the working-class experience of classical culture from the Bill of Rights in 1689 to the outbreak of World War II. They analyse a huge volume of data, from individuals, groups, regions and activities, in a huge range of sources including memoirs, autobiographies, Trade Union collections, poetry, factory archives, artefacts and documents in regional museums. This allows a deeper understanding not only of the many examples of interaction with the Classics, but also what these cultural interactions signified to the working poor: from the promise of social advancement, to propaganda exploited by the elites, to covert and overt class war. A People’s History of Classics offers a fascinating and insightful exploration of the many and varied engagements with Greece and Rome among the working classes in Britain and Ireland, and is a must-read not only for classicists, but also for students of British and Irish social, intellectual and political history in this period. Further, it brings new historical depth and perspectives to public debates around the future of classical education, and should be read by anyone with an interest in educational policy in Britain today.

Class and Greco-Roman Antiquity in Britain and Ireland 1689 to 1939

A People's History of Classics

William Henry Fitchett

William H. Judkins

Review of Reviews for Australasia

Stead's Review

Catullus, one of the most Hellenizing, scandalous, and emotionally expressive of the Roman poets, burst onto the British cultural scene during the Romantic era. It was not until this socially, politically, and culturally explosive epoch, with its mania for all things Greek, that Catullus' work was first fully translated into English and played a key role in the countercultural and commercially driven classicism of the time. Previously marginalized on the traditional eighteenth-century curriculum as a charming but debauched minor love poet, Catullus was discovered as a major poetic voice in the late Georgian era by reformist emulators-especially in the so-called Cockney School-and won widespread respect. In this volume, Henry Stead pioneers a new way of understanding the key role Catullus played in shaping Romanticism by examining major literary engagements with Catullus, from John Nott of Bristol's pioneering book-length bilingual edition (1795), to George Lamb's polished verse translation (1821). He identifies the influence of Catullus' poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford, demonstrating the degree of its cultural penetration.

The Reception of Catullus in Romantic Britain, 1795-1821

A Cockney Catullus

A Cockney Catullus traces the reception history of the Roman poet Catullus in Romantic-era Britain, when his work was first fully translated into English, appealing to the countercultural and commercially driven classicism of the time, as well as the frenzy for all things Greek. Stead identifies the influence of Catullus' poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt,Canning, Brougham, and Gifford, demonstrating the reach of one of the most Hellenizing, scandalous, and emotionally expressive of the Roman poets.

Henry Stead

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