The Classical Parthenon: Recovering the Strangeness of the Ancient World - cover image

Copyright

William St Clair

Published On

2022-08-24

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80064-344-4
Hardback978-1-80064-345-1
PDF978-1-80064-346-8
HTML978-1-80064-678-0
XML978-1-80064-349-9
EPUB978-1-80064-347-5
AZW3978-1-80064-348-2

Language

  • English

Print Length

344 pages (xiv+330)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 23 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.91" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 27 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.06" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback654g (23.07oz)
Hardback828g (29.21oz)

Media

Illustrations39

OCLC Number

1342253863

LCCN

2021386016

BIC

  • HBLL
  • 1DVG
  • JFS

BISAC

  • ARC005020
  • HIS042000
  • POL031000

LCC

  • NA281

Keywords

  • Athenian Acropolis
  • symbol of democracy
  • Parthenon
  • classical Athenian worldview
  • temple structure
  • narrative analysis

The Classical Parthenon

Recovering the Strangeness of the Ancient World

Complementing Who Saved the Parthenon? this companion volume sets aside more recent narratives surrounding the Athenian Acropolis, supposedly ‘the very symbol of democracy itself’, instead asking if we can truly access an ancient past imputed with modern meaning. And, if so, how?

In this book William St Clair presents a reconstructed understanding of the Parthenon from within the classical Athenian worldview. He explores its role and meaning by weaving together a range of textual and visual sources into two innovative oratorical experiments – a speech in the style of Thucydides and a first-century CE rhetorical exercise – which are used to develop a narrative analysis of the temple structure, revealing a strange story of indigeneity, origins, and empire.

The Classical Parthenon offers new answers to old questions, such as the riddle of the Parthenon frieze, and provides a framing device for the wider relationship between visual artefacts, built heritage, and layers of accumulated cultural rhetoric. This groundbreaking and pertinent work will appeal across the disciplines to readers interested in the classics, art history, and the nature of history, while also speaking to a general audience that is interrogating the role of monuments in contemporary society.

Contents

  • William St Clair
  • William St Clair

6. Heritage

(pp. 287–292)
  • William St Clair

Preface

(pp. xi–xiv)
  • William St Clair

Contributors

William St Clair

(author)

(7 December 1937 – 30 June 2021) was a British historian, senior research fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.