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

B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BH Aesthetics

Moore, Daniel Thomas ; Small, Ian

University:University of Birmingham

Department:Department of English

关键词: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion;    BH Aesthetics;   

Others  :  http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/6150/1/Moore08PhD.pdf

来源: University of Birmingham eTheses Repository

【 摘 要 】

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.