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Nineteenth-century archaeology and the retrieval of the past : Carlyle, Scott, Bulwer-Lytton, Pater, and Haggard

University of British Columbia

"Nineteenth-Century Archaeology and the Retrieval of the Past: Carlyle, Scott, Bulwer-Lytton, Pater, and Haggard" shows that the recovery, analysis, and interpretation of material history was a model for investigating, re-creating, and reinventing the past in Thomas Carlyle's "Past and Present" (1843), Walter Scott's "The Antiquary" (1816), Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834), Walter Pater's "The Renaissance" (1873) and "Greek Studies" (1895), and H. Rider Haggard's "She". (1887). Through the self-conscious use of archaeological language and methodology, the authors of these fictional and nonfiction texts composed what I term "narratives of continuity," in which the retrieval of artifacts is a tangible means of drawing connections between past and present. These narratives illustrate teleological interpretations of history espoused by archaeologists, who themselves sought prefigurements of modern culture as they studied archaeological records. This thesis in part examines philosophic, scientific, and political thought underlying the penchant in these texts to link past and present as a means of sustaining historical identity and thereby validating present institutions. To the Victorians, archaeology was an authenticating medium for the material consolidation of tradition. The archaeological themes and language in these texts have a counterpart in their form. Devices such as editorial "framing" and narrative "stratification" contribute to the sense of text as archaeological site. These texts are "sites" for the recovery and substantiation of the past. They also chart developments in archaeology over the course of the nineteenth century. The archaeological trope evolves with archaeology's maturation from amateur antiquarianism (reflected in Scott's 1816 novel The Antiquary) to the first glimpses of professional and scientific archaeology at the end of the century depicted in Haggard's "She" (1887). Narratives of continuity, moreover, emanate from several fields of Victorian archaeology. The writings of Carlyle, Scott, Bulwer-Lytton, Pater, and Haggard depict a range of archaeological activity spanning domestic excavation to foreign archaeology in the Middle East, Egypt, Greece, Italy, and South Africa.

Thesis/Dissertation

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2009-03-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/6203

English

University of British Columbia

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