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[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review.]
This edited volume originated in an international conference ‘Panhellenism and European Identity’ held at the University of Cyprus in 2015. The contributions raise and engage with some important questions, such as the definitions and connotations of ancient and modern European philhellenism, whether philhellenism was political or cultural, and what was the relationship between philhellenism and Hellenism. The strength of this book lies in its variety, offering an exploration of the phenomenon of philhellenism in antiquity, esp. Roman imperial times, and in nineteenth-century Europe. The focus on the two periods is thoughtfully chosen, as the volume aims to locate the roots of modern ‘European philhellenism’ in ancient Rome, where ‘a classical philhellenism emerges which can be perceived in literature and which has been drawn on by European movements since the Enlightenment’ (p. 1). The emphasis on the historical roots in antiquity in turn explains ‘the transcultural force and dynamic’ of philhellenism as a long-lasting and recurrent phenomenon (p. 1).
The volume is composed of three sections, in total 14 chapters, with an Introduction and a ‘Conclusions and Prospects’ that reiterates that modern Europe still needs the legacy of ancient Greece. Part I, ‘Ancient Philhellenism’, consists of five chapters dedicated to the perceptions and attitudes of philhellenism in Roman authors, with case studies ranging from the first Latin poet, Livius Andronicus, to Longinus’ concept of the sublime. Antje Wessels studies how the Romans ‘anchored’ their literary tradition in Greek literature through a case study of the disputable presentations of the date, production, and political context of Andronicus’ translation of Greek dramatic texts. Spyridon Tzounakas and Stella Alekou examine literary philhellenism in Roman Satire, but from different angles, and reach distinct conclusions. Tzounakas analyses Horace’s Hellenism from the ways in which the poet draws from his Greek poetic predecessors and incorporates them into the Roman context. Referencing Greek Old and New Comedy, philosophy, iambic, and lyric poets, including Archilochus, Sappho, Alcaeus, and Pindar, Horace’s juxtaposition of Latin and Greek elements aims to elevate the uniquely Roman genre—Satire—and to promote Roman intellectual prestige. Different from Tzounakas, Alekou selects the works of Lucilius, Persius, Juvenal, and Petronius to demonstrate the ambiguity in Greek and Roman cultural interactions. Drawing on the concepts of ‘self’ and ‘other’, Alekou suggests that the ‘inappropriate and excessive’ use of Greek language, texts, and tropes set up the Greeks as the ‘other’, ‘the reforming element’ for the Romans to contemplate, to reform their cultural identities (p. 73).
The following chapter from Despina Keramida provides an analysis of the relationship between Martial’s poetics and Roman politics, with particular attention to the concepts of patronage and philhellenism during the rule of Domitian in the epigrams of book 9. For Keramida, Martial’s use of Greek techniques, imagery, and language for his practice of the Roman laus of the emperor Domitian shows his ‘intentionally ambiguous’ perception of and attitude towards philhellenism (p. 100). Martial’s engagement with Greek tradition seeks to elevate Roman tradition as maior in comparison with Greek tradition, which in turn ‘ensures he is worthy of laus, fama and munera from his patron’ (p. 101). The last chapter of the first section, by Martin Vöhler, offers a textual analysis of how Longinus in On the Sublime defines the concept of sublimity and its relevance to modern European philhellenism. Longinus’ emphasis on enthusiasm and mimesis, and his recourse to classical literature, intend to provide educational methods for preventing the ‘decline’ of contemporary Roman literature and morality.
The six chapters in Part II, ‘Philhellenism and the Greek Revolution’, explicate the ‘very distinct and multifaceted forms’ of ‘European Philhellenism’ and the reception of ancient Greece during the time of the Greek Revolution in French, British, German, and Greek ‘philhellenes’, such as Wilhelm Müller and Adamantios Korais, and in European representation of the Greek landscape. As shown in Shelley’s sentimental claim that ‘we are all Greeks’, sympathy towards the War of Greek Independence attracted pan-European attention; while the expressions and forms of philhellenism varied by nation. Collectively, the six chapters explore the relationship between philhellenism and the Greek Revolution from various perspectives, addressing important questions such as alterity and identity, self and other, objective and subjective, and national and transnational. Richard Jenkyns explores the political and cultural tensions between philhellenism and Hellenism in British poets, such as Bryon, Shelley, and Keats. Marco Hillemann’s objective is to show the ‘national context’ in which European philhellenes developed their perspectives on ancient and modern Greece through ‘the translation, the modification, and the acculturation of “foreign” perspectives’ (p. 141). Hillemann’s case study is Lord Byron’s influence on German poet Wilhelm Müller’s philhellenism, suggesting that ‘the aesthetic principles and the political aims of Müller’s philhellenic poetry’ differed from those of Byron yet the British poet was still an important model for Müller, whose tragedy Leo Admiral von Cypern reveals the identity crisis in modern Greece and modern Europe and the tensions between the East and the West. Domna Moyseos’ chapter examines the travel writings of 19th-century French authors, such as Chateaubriand, Lamartine, and Nerval, whose philhellenisms were not only political but also cultural, in revealing the complex relationship between identity and alterity. Miltos Pechlivanos examines to what extent the Greek patriot Adamantios Korais can be called ‘philhellène à sa manière’ through an analysis of Korais’ use of terms, such as philhellen and misellen, and his advocacy of philhellenism along with French encyclopaedian ‘philanthropy’. Korais’ philanthropic philhellenism was educational and moral, focusing on a ‘révolution morale’ (p. 186) in his audience. Like Moyseos, Paraskevas Matalas also stresses the interconnection between ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ but from the perspective of how the 19th-century European travellers represented the Greek landscape. The formation of the Greek landscape was ‘real, material’, but also servedEuropean imperialism, in which, through appropriating the Greek landscape, the privileged European travellers and state-organised campaigns established their superiority and social distinction. The section ends with May Chehab’s chapter, which succinctly traces the development of Greek constitutionalism from local/regional to national levels and its relationship with philhellenism from the 1790s to the 1830s.
Interrelated with section II, the three chapters in section III aim to explore the role of philhellenism in the formation of European identity. Building on the Weberian sociological theory of association, Konstantinos Maras demonstrates how the national Philhellenic Committees in countries such as Germany and Switzerland were organised in a democratic way and functioned as ‘a network project’, a ‘transnational cooperation of civil society initiatives – Europe from below’ (p. 225). Marilisa Mitsou examines the German classical scholar and educator Friedrich Thiersch’s ‘realistic’ plan for the development of Greece in his De l’état actuel de la Grèce, suggesting that Thiersch’s plan was economic and demographic, involving the exploitation of Greek natural resources, capital movements, market expansion, and the establishment of colonies in Greece. The section concludes with Alexis Politis’ chapter, which looks at Greek intellectuals’ reaction to a defunct philhellenism between the 1850s and the 1880s.
The objective of the volume is to emphasise the ‘fundamental significance’ of ancient philhellenism, that is ‘the relation between Greco-Roman hellenophilia and modern Philhellenism and Europeanness’ (p. 2), partly through examining the vitality of ancient literary tropes, such as Greek decline and degeneracy (p. 3). However, most of the contributions in the volume do not engage closely with and clarify the literary connections between Roman philhellenism and nineteenth-century European philhellenism. As a result, the reader is left wondering in what ways Roman authors’ literary engagement with their Greek predecessors influenced the ‘revival’ of philhellenism in nineteenth-century Europe. The volume could have benefited from more careful editing so as to avoid the wrong format for long direct quotations (e.g. no indentation for the quotation from Korais, p. 189); incorrect punctuation; rather confusing use of capitalised, non-capitalised, and italic forms of ‘philhellenism’ (e.g. the italic ‘English Philhellenism’ alongside the non-italic ‘Swiss philhellenism’, p. 234); similarly, italics for the ‘Netherlands’ (p. 237). A comprehensive index in addition to the index of names would have been very helpful if it had been provided.
Notwithstanding, this is a welcome addition to the study of the reception of classical Greece and the development of philhellenism in ancient and modern contexts, which should interest classicists and historians of modern Greek and European history.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Martin Vöhler, Stella Alekou, Miltos Pechlivanos, Concepts and Functions of Philhellenism: Aspects of a Transcultural Movement
Part I: Ancient Philhellenism
Antje Wessels, Shaping the (Hi)story of Innovation: Livius Andronicus as the First Poet of Latin Literature
Spyridon Tzounakas, Ηellenism in Horace’s Literary Criticism
Stella Alekou, ‘Inappropriate’ Philhellenism in Roman Satire
Despina Keramida, Philhellenism, Patronage and Poetics in Martial
Martin Vöhler, Enthusiasm and Mimesis in Longinus’ Concept of the Sublime
Part II: Philhellenism and the Greek Revolution
Richard Jenkyns, Hellenism and Philhellenism in British Experience
Marco Hillemann, Could Leo Become Leonidas Again? The German Philhellene Wilhelm Müller and his Ambivalent Reception of Lord Byron
Domna Moyseos, Philhellenism as an Exploration of Identity and Alterity in the Literary Tradition of Travels to the East in the 19th Century
Miltos Pechlivanos, Adamantios Korais (Smyrna 1748–Paris 1833), philhellène à sa manière
Paraskevas Matalas, Europeans in the Greek Landscape: Idealization, Appropriation, Disillusionment
May Chehab, Philhellenism and Constitutionalism: The First Greek Constitutions
Part III: Philhellenism and European Identity
Konstantinos Maras, Building Europe from Below: The Philhellenic Committee Movement as an Early Form of European Integration
Marilisa Mitsou, Philhellenism and Geopolitics: Friedrich Thiersch’s De l’état actuel de la Grèce (1833) as a European Project
Alexis Politis, The Greek ‘Great Idea’ of Irredentism Up Against a Defunct Philhellenism (1850–1880)
Conclusions and Prospects
Glenn W. Most, Ancient Greece and the Identity of Modern Europe
List of Contributors
Index of Names