If the previous story of the American student was rather benign, I’m not so sure about Leni Riefenstahl’s quite marvellous 1938 film of the 1936 “Nazi Olympics”. It’s a film that has been claimed rightly as establishing the modern grammar and vocabulary of the moving imagery of sports: cameras were mounted beneath balloons, on rafts, in trenches, on rowing boats, under water and under saddles to try to capture the kinaesthetic – indeed the kino-aesthetic, or movement aesthetic – of the struggle towards perfection that governs the overall narrative of the film.More
Reading the Olympics 2: the Discobolos Redivivus (1896)
After the set up in the first part of this talk, here, surprise surprise, is a photograph of a discus thrower of the 1896 Olympics. It is the celebrity victory photo of Robert Garrett, who won the discus event on the evening of the 1st day of the first modern Olympics , 6 April 1896.…More
Reading the Olympics: the Discobolos 1
The following trio of blogs comprises the opening plenary given at the Reading the Olympics Study Day at the University of Greenwich 7 June 2012. It is a great pleasure and honour to have been invited to speak before you all at Greenwich: it’s the first time I have had the opportunity of doing so…More
Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 3
This and the previous two blog posts were originally published as “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Please see the first post on the purely…More
Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 2
The previous and the following blog posts were originally published as “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Please see the first post on the purely visual additions. This post mainly concerns…More
Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): an Encounter with Italy 1
The following three blog posts were originally published as “The origins of Ouida’s Pascarèl (1873): the combination novel, myths of the female artist and the commerce of art.” In: Anglistica Pisana. 6.1 (2009) Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy, pp. 77-85. ISBN 9788846725967. Since that volume is out of print, I reproduce it her with the kind permission…More
John Dicks, Publisher, and “Dicks’ English Library of Standard Works”
My thanks to Louis James for the gift some time ago of six volumes (bound as 3) plus 10 monthly numbers of Dicks’ English Library of Standard Works and, in anticipation, to Anne Humpherys’ ongoing research on Dicks and reprinting, to which this post is intended as a small contribution. To both these remarkable scholars…More
London University Magazine 1828-30
Unlike the subjects of my previous two posts, there is virtually nothing written about the The London University Magazine. It was intended to be, according to its first article, “a magazine whose principle is to encourage merit, wherever it is to be found, and foster youthful genius, wherever it may have been discovered” (“A Young…More
The Monthly Repository 1806-1837
While the Monthly Repository has been well studied (see the bibliography at the end) – and it occupies a central place in the ncse project – it is nonetheless worthwhile here assembling information here that is not available elsewhere. Running January 1806 – December 1837, this shilling monthly went through quite a series of publishers:…More
Flowers of Literature 1801-1809
Flowers of Literature for 1801 and 1802 [1803, 1804, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1808, 1809] or, Characteristic Sketches of human nature and Modern Manners. To which is added A General View of Literature during that Period with Notes, Historical, Critical and Explanatory [from 1803 the following is added] Portraits, and Biographical Sketches Though described and extracted…More
Prof Andrew King 