"There are yet other kinds of work which may be done?" : aesthetic history and the representation of the Italian past, 1850-1935

Moore, Daniel Thomas (2008). "There are yet other kinds of work which may be done?" : aesthetic history and the representation of the Italian past, 1850-1935. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis explores a number of interdisciplinary writings on the Italian past by later nineteenth- and early twentieth-century artistically minded critics and cultural commentators, with a view to recovering their historiographical importance. Beginning with an exploration of the parameters and scope of a genre defined as 'aesthetic history', along with some theoretical work grounded in current debates about the nature of historical representation, this thesis goes on to offer in-depth discussion of texts on the Italian past by John Ruskin, Walter Pater, Vernon Lee, Henry James, D. H. Lawrence and Adrian Stokes. By offering a critical reconstruction of each author's thinking about the past, along with the cogent and ill-explored engagements they make with historiographical study, this thesis affords the reader a better understanding of some of the tensions present in historical writing - tensions surrounding
issues of epistemology, visuality, psychology and materiality - during what were decades of great change in historical thinking. Moreover, this thesis offers a detailed investigation into the important role played by the Italian past in the aesthetic-historical canon, which in turn produces a more complicated picture of the connections between literature, aesthetics and
historiography during this period.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):