Women Writers and the Dark Side of Late-Victorian Hellenism

Women Writers and the Dark Side of Late-Victorian Hellenism innovatively examines the appropriation of transgressive, violent female figures from ancient Greek literature and myth by writers such as Augusta Webster, Amy Levy, Emily Pfeiffer, Michael Field, Mona Caird and Vernon Lee. Olverson reveals the extent to which ancient antagonists like the murderous Medea and the sinister sorceress Circe were employed as a means to protest against, and comment upon, contemporary social and political institutions. Reinvigorating, revising and reimagining such potent ancient paradigms enabled Victorian women writers challenge male-dominated systems of social organization, scholarship, translation and the transmission of knowledge.

Women Writers and the Dark Side of Late-Victorian Hellenism not only reveals just how deeply embedded the ancient Greek world was in Victorian literature and culture, but also how women imaginatively engaged with and thereby changed the intellectual culture of the late-nineteenth century. This study will appeal to scholars, students and those interested in Victorian studies, women's literature and the reception of classics in the nineteenth century.