Medieval and modern Greece in the Academy

Abstract

This chapter’s central concern is the search for the imprint of medieval and modern Greece in the high-culture British periodical press from the 1870s to the beginnings of the twentieth century through a case study of the Academy (1869–1916). Drawing on its progressive spirit and intellectual authority, the Academy displayed a serious scholarly interest in contemporary research on the language, literature and history of the Greeks beyond classical times to the present. A systematic investigation of its contents demonstrates the role exercised by a few of its contributors in the dissemination to the British educated public of such new knowledge. From this standpoint, the Academy served as a vehicle of late philhellenism: it promoted the idea of the continuum of Greek culture since ancient times while showing a considerable interest, distinct from that devoted to classical Hellas, in the study of the post-antique and contemporary Greek worlds.