Greco-Roman Literature and Culture in the Imagination of Virginia’s Tidewater Region, 1607–1826: The Empire of the Mind

This book explores how classical texts influenced early European settlers and inhabitants of the Tidewater region of Virginia, shaping their assumptions about personhood, liberty, town planning, and representative government. It includes translations by George Sandys, William Strachey, William Byrd II, and Thomas Jefferson, as well as discussions of cultural historical context, excavations of Pompeii, and Enlightenment ideals.

Format: Hardback
Length: 394 pages
Publication date: 15 May 2024
Publisher: Lexington Books

This book delves into the profound impact of classical texts on the early European settlers and inhabitants of the Tidewater region of Virginia, shedding light on how Greek and Roman literature and culture shaped and sometimes challenged prevailing notions of personhood, liberty, town planning, and representative government during Virginia's period of expansion from the fort at Jamestown to Thomas Jefferson's Virginia. Ben Haller introduces the reader to the Ovid translation penned by George Sandys during his time in Virginia as Treasurer, William Strachey's account of the wreck of the Sea Venture, which likely served as an inspiration for William Shakespeare's The Tempest, William Byrd II's writings, including his secret diaries that provide intimate glimpses into the life of an Indian trader and plantation owner in the early eighteenth century, and Jefferson's expansive Enlightenment Era quest for knowledge, both classical and modern. Haller's analysis of these texts is meticulously grounded in a discussion of the cultural historical context of the English settlement of Virginia, the excavations of Pompeii, the eighteenth-century obsession with Palladian architecture, the construction of the campus of the University of Virginia, and the emergence of new Enlightenment ideals of personal liberty and human rights, which gained prominence during Jefferson's lifetime and which he played a significant role in enshrining in modern American political thought.

Weight: 726g
Dimension: 236 x 158 x 28 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781793643278