A Cross-Cultural History of Britain and Belgium, 1815–1918: Mudscapes and Artistic Entanglements

ISBN-13: 9783030879280 / Angielski / Miękka / 2023 / 288 str.

Marysa Demoor

Opis

This book highlights the ways in which Britain and Belgium became culturally entangled as a result of their interaction in the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. In the course of the nineteenth century, the battlefields of Waterloo and Ypres in Belgium became veritable burial grounds for generations of dead British military, indirectly leading to the most intensive ties between the two countries. By exploring this twofold path, the author uncovers a series of cross-influences and creative similarities within the Belgo-British artistic community, and explores the background against which the British national identity was constructed. Revealing unknown links between some of the most famous artists on both sides of the channel, such as D.G. Rossetti and Jan Van Eyck; Christina Rossetti and Fernand Khnopff; John Millais and Pieter Breughel, and Lewis Carroll and Quentin Massys, the book emphasises an artistic cross-fertilisation that can be found within battlefield literature throughout the nineteenth century, including examples from the likes of William M. Thackeray, Frances Trollope and Charlotte Brontë. Providing a rich intercultural history of Belgo-British relations after the battle of Waterloo, this interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students researching history, literature, art and cultural studies.

Spis treści

1. British Identity in Belgian Soil.- 2. Waterloo Visitors: The Immediate Aftermath.- 3. The Fiction of Belgium.- 4. The Allure of the Middle Ages: The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood meets Jan van Eyck.- 5. A Royal Example: Creating a European Family.- 6. Surrealist Entanglements.- 7. From Ashes to Soil to Mud.- 8. "There is no art more exciting than English art": Belgo-British Artistic Liaisons, 1890-1919.- 9. Epilogue: The Colour of National Identity.

O autorze

Marysa Demoor is Full Professor Emerita of English Literature and Culture at Ghent University in Belgium, where, since 1995, she has been the Director of the Centre for Gender Studies. She has published widely on Victorian and modernist culture, including the books Marketing the Author: Authorial Personae, Narrative Selves and Self-fashioning (Palgrave, 2004) and The Lure of Illustration in the Nineteenth Century: Picture and Press (Palgrave, 2009). 

Blurb

“This is a boldly original and enlightening book which explores the rich and distinct ‘special’ relationship between Britain and Belgium in the nineteenth century. By examining a set of ‘cultural entanglements’, from Waterloo to WWI, and taking in writers from Wordsworth to James, Demoor remaps Britain's relationship to Europe in the period. By revealing the longstanding depth of connection between Britain and Belgium, she also speaks meaningfully to questions of national identity in our present time.”

—Professor Mark W. Turner, King's College London, UK

"This surprising and fascinating study brings to light the deep entanglement over a long period of British and Belgian experience and writing. It illuminates that history and suggests new ways of thinking about our present situation."

—Professor Dame Gillian Beer, Clare Hall, Cambridge, UK

This book highlights the ways in which Britain and Belgium became culturally entangled as a result of their interaction in the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War. In the course of the nineteenth century, the battlefields of Waterloo and Ypres in Belgium became veritable burial grounds for generations of dead British military, indirectly leading to the most intensive ties between the two countries. By exploring this twofold path, the author uncovers a series of cross-influences and creative similarities within the Belgo-British artistic community, and explores the background against which the British national identity was constructed. Revealing unknown links between some of the most famous artists on both sides of the channel, such as D.G. Rossetti and Jan Van Eyck; Christina Rossetti and Fernand Khnopff; John Millais and Pieter Breughel, and Lewis Carroll and Quentin Massys, the book emphasises an artistic cross-fertilisation that can be found within battlefield literature throughout the nineteenth century, including examples from the likes of William M. Thackeray, Frances Trollope and Charlotte Brontë. Providing a rich intercultural history of Belgo-British relations after the battle of Waterloo, this interdisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students researching history, literature, art and cultural studies.

Marysa Demoor is Professor Emerita of Victorian and Modernist Culture at Ghent University in Belgium.