Materialist Romanticism
The Matter of the Marbles
1st Edition
Published on 11. December 2025
148 pages
979-8-216-25810-0 (ISBN)
Description
A matter-based approach to the study of nineteenth-century Romantic artifacts centering on the removal of the Parthenon sculptures from Athens, Greece by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, and sale of the prized artifacts to the British Parliament for £35,000 in 1816.
Dewey W. Hall delves into the intrigue surrounding the famed sculptures by reaching back in time to Democritus (460-370 B.C.), Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and Epicurus (341-271 B.C.) who theorized about the atom-the basis for the materialist tradition-and Lucretius's notion of the swerve in De Rerum Natura (Of the Nature of Things) (c. 55-49 B.C.). This study includes various artistic responses to the Parthenon sculptures via the verbal and visual as represented through George Gordon, Lord Byron's Curse of Minerva (1811) and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812), Benjamin Robert Haydon's sketches of the horse of Selene (1809) held at the British Museum, and John Keats's Endymion (1818) and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819).
Dewey W. Hall delves into the intrigue surrounding the famed sculptures by reaching back in time to Democritus (460-370 B.C.), Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and Epicurus (341-271 B.C.) who theorized about the atom-the basis for the materialist tradition-and Lucretius's notion of the swerve in De Rerum Natura (Of the Nature of Things) (c. 55-49 B.C.). This study includes various artistic responses to the Parthenon sculptures via the verbal and visual as represented through George Gordon, Lord Byron's Curse of Minerva (1811) and Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1812), Benjamin Robert Haydon's sketches of the horse of Selene (1809) held at the British Museum, and John Keats's Endymion (1818) and "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819).
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
Professional and scholarly
College/higher education
Illustrations
12 b/w illustrations
ISBN-13
979-8-216-25810-0 (9798216258100)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
approx. 02/2026
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
€101.10
Not yet published
Person
Dewey W. Hall is Professor of English at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Content
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Introduction: On the Question of Matter
1. Marble as Material Form: Geology, Quarrying, and Provenance
2. Shared Abjection: The Case of Elgin and Byron
3. A Materialist Approach to the Parthenon Sculptures: Subject, Object, and Thing
4. The Political Ecology of Matter: Marbles, Volcanoes, and Humans
Afterword: The Parthenon of the North
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Introduction: On the Question of Matter
1. Marble as Material Form: Geology, Quarrying, and Provenance
2. Shared Abjection: The Case of Elgin and Byron
3. A Materialist Approach to the Parthenon Sculptures: Subject, Object, and Thing
4. The Political Ecology of Matter: Marbles, Volcanoes, and Humans
Afterword: The Parthenon of the North
Bibliography
Index
