On the Significance of On the Significance of Hellenism for European Hellenism for European

Cultural Identity from 18th- Cultural Identity from 18th- 19th Century19th Century

On the Significance of On the Significance of Hellenism for European Hellenism for European

Cultural Identity from 18th- Cultural Identity from 18th- 19th Century19th Century

by Li Zhiqiang(Oct.24)by Li Zhiqiang(Oct.24)

1. Introduction • After the Renaissance in Italy, with the expa

nsion of European colonies around the world, many European countries were seeking to establish a kind of cultural homogeneity; hence a common cultural source of Europe. This paper, beginning from the perspective of cultural identity, studies the significance of Hellenism as a common cultural source in the establishment of cultural identity.

2. The definition of Hellenism and European

Identity• 2.1 Hellenism• 2.2 Cultural Identity • 2.3 Before “European Identify”• 2.4 The Awareness of European

Identify

2.1 Hellenism • There are several different potential u

nderstandings for the term Hellenism, and here it refers to the neoclassical movement relevant with the Romantic period in England and Germany.

2.2 Cultural Identity• Cultural Identity is generally defined as a pr

ocess of establishing certain identity. The basic elements of cultural identity include such cultural symbols as place, gender, race, religious beliefs, history, and language. It is a kind of social practice participated, acknowledged and inherited by individuals of certain group or society.

2.3 European Identity• In ancient Greek mythology, “Europ

a” was a Phoenician princess whom Zeus abducted after assuming the form of a dazzling white bull.

• For Homer, Europe (Εὐρώπη), was a mythological queen of Crete. Later “Europa” stood for mainland Greece, and by 500 BC its meaning had been extended to lands to the north.

• Etymologically, the dominant theory suggests the name Europe is derived from the Greek roots meaning broad (eur-) and eye (op-, opt-), hence Eurṓ7pē, "wide-gazing".

• Geographical, Religious and Institutional Union of Europe before “Hellenism” of 18th-19th century.

• Alexander the Great • Roman Empire • Christianity • Feudalism • Renaissance

2.4 Awareness of European Identity :

• Saint-Pierre A Project for Setting an Everlasting Peace in Europe[1] (1713)

• Kant Perpetual Peace [2](1795)

• Napoleon wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe," “Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility." [3](1769--1821)

• HugoIn International Peace Congress in Paris in 1851[4]

• “A day will come when there will be …markets opening to commerce and minds opening to ideas. …a great supreme senate which will be to Europe . …A day will come when we shall see those two immense groups, the United States of America and the United States of Europe…”

Historical background of this Awareness

• Crusade(1096--1272)war of religion • Black death(1340s)survival• Global navigation(15th century)

Pan-Europe• The concept of Pan-Europe takes the

European cultural identity as its premise. And therefore European cultural identity needs to inherit a kind of cultural homogeneity to be accepted by all the European nations. The inheritance of Hellenism can be traced back to 18th-19th century.

4. Hellenism in Germany and Britain

• 4.1 Hellenism in Germany• 4.2 Hellenism in Britain

4.1 Hellenism in Germany • Johann Joachim Winckelmann • Goethe • Wilhelm von Humboldt • Schiller • Hegel• Schlegel

Johann Joachim Winckelmann • An art historian and aesthetic theoretician,

and also as the initiator of this movement gave a high praise for the Greek ideal in sculpture. He wrote the essay Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks (1755). For Winckelmann, the essence of Greek art was noble simplicity and sedate grandeur, often encapsulated in sculptures representing moments of intense emotion or tribulation. His writings reawakened the taste for classical art and were responsible for generating the neoclassical movement in the arts.

Goethe(Faust //his Biography)

• In 1786, he traveled to Italy and was impressed by Greek and Roman sculpture, architecture, and literature.

• After they go their separate ways, Faust meets Chiron the centaur (mythological creature that was half-man and half-horse). Chiron is wiser than most humans and was a tutor of Hercules, Achilles, and Asclepius (Greek god of healing). ….Two ancient sages–Anaxagoras and Thales–advise him, and they further consult with creatures of myth. Homunculus learns that there is only one way for him to achieve his goal: let time and nature do it for him. So he hurls himself into the sea, there to evolve as did primordial life forms. Faust and Mephistopheles travel to Sparta, home of King Menelaus, who has returned from the Trojan War with Helen. While he celebrates the Greek conquest of Troy, Helen and a chorus of captive Trojan women fret about what will be done with them.

• -----Faust

Wilhelm von Humboldt • On the Character of the Greeks, The I

deal and Historical View of the Same• The History of the Decline and Fall of

the Greek Republics• The Pindar

Schiller • Home! and with them are gone

The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;

Life's beauty and life's melody:—alone Broods o'er the desolate void, the lifeless word; Yet rescued from time's deluge, still they throng Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish: All, that which gains immortal life in song, To mortal life must perish!

• -----The Gods Of Greece

Hegel• “Higher, freer philosophic science, as also the be

auty of our untrammeled art, the taste for, and love of the same, we know to have taken their root in Greek life and to have created there from their spirit. If we were to have an aspiration, it would be for such a land and such conditions.// But what makes us specially at home with the Greeks is that they made their world their home; the common spirit of homeliness unites us both. In ordinary life we like best the men and families that are homely and contented in themselves, not desiring what is outside and above them, and so it is with the Greeks.”

• --- Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy

Schlegel • German writer, critic and philosopher,

a pioneer in comparative Indo-European linguistics and comparative philology. Friedrich von Schlegel deeply influenced the early German Romantic Movement – he is generally held to be the person who first established the term romantisch in the literary context. On the Study of Greek Poetry(1797) is his work.

4.2 Hellenism in England • In England, the influence of Hellenis

m could be found from famous poets and writers (Greek Influence on English Poetry by John Churton Collins 1976)

John Keats• ( Endymion// Ode on a Grecian Urn)• Endymion was a poem based on the Greek

myth of Endymion & the moon goddess. In this poem, Keats described his imagination in an enchanted atmosphere-a lovely moon-lit world where human love & ideal beauty were merged into one.

Ode on a Grecian Urn• Stanza 5 • O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede • Of marble men and maidens overwrought, • With forest branches and the trodden weed; • Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought • As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! • When old age shall this generation waste, • Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe • Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, • “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all • Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Percy Bysshe Shelley• Prometheus Unbound• also see Shelley and Greece by Jennif

er Wallace 1997

Byron • The mountains look on Marathon---• And Marathon looks on the sea;• And musing there an hour alone,• I dream'd that Greece might yet be free• For, standing on the Persians' grave,• I could not deem myself a slave.• A king sat on the rocky brow• Which looks on sea-born Salamis;• And ships, by thousands, lay below,• And men in nations;---all were his!• He counted them at break of day---• And when the sun set, where were they?• -------The Isles of Greece

5. Significance of Hellenism in establishing European

Identity• When viewing from the developmental stag

es of cultural identity, Hellenism of this period was gradually becoming the kernel of cultural homogeneity, which , via a group of people who produced profound influence on many fields such as arts, philosophy, literature, education and linguistics. And it is these aspects that composed important layers of the European Identity.

An Example of Wilhelm von Humboldt

• His contributions to the philosophy of language and the theory and practice of education owed a great deal to antique ideas on them. And the present world owed a lot to him when with regards to these fields. Besides his profound influence on linguistic study, the Prussian education system which was established by him is now widely modeled by modern nations from USA to Japan.

• Humboldt was greatly influenced by Ancient Greek spirit.

• “The Greeks are not merely a people useful for us to know historically, but an ideal. ” “In so far as antiquity is called ideal, the Romans participate therein only in so far as it is impossible to separate them from the Greeks. ” “‘‘The specific virtue of the Greeks is to have grasped the task to represent life to the highest degree as a nation…”

• ----from On the Character of the Greeks, The Ideal and Historical view of the Same

Reasons • Several reasons contribute to the boo

ming of Hellenism in Europe.

• First, with the weakening controlling power of Churches and revolutionary movement in European Continent, people want to recover a state of Union under a new spiritual substitute of Christianity. The Renaissance and Enlightenment failed to achieve this goal.

• Second, the global navigation and expansion of Europe colonies around the world made it necessary to establish a strong “Pan-European” political identity ( and even to recover the big Europe the Roman empire once united).

• Third, the accumulation of wealth thanks to the rapid development of industry greatly boosted people’s confidence on the “ration” and “liberalism” of human beings, which could be best represented by Ancient Greek spirit.

Conclusion • Europeans do have “a sense of European identity

traditionally derives from the idea of a common European historical narrative, which is assumed to be the source of the most fundamental European values.”

• Typically the 'common history' includes a combination of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, the feudalism of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, 19th Century Liberalism, Christianity, secularism and (sometimes) negative elements such as colonialism and the World Wars.

• It is the historical background that produced the booming Hellenism in Europe from 18th-19th century, which helps to implant ancient Greek culture into the cultural homogeneity of Europe. A clear knowledge of this process may produce a deeper understanding of European Integration nowadays.

Thank you!