How many working class Britons did so and when? By 1800, was it 1%? 10%?
For instance, the article mentions the British Museum in 1782. But there was an entry fee until the 1830s, so I strongly doubt millions of working class people went there, even once in their life.
The anecdote about the slater reading a newspaper on a roof may be true, but it could very well be an urban legend from the 1730s. It's part of the collection of short and amusing notes from Montesquieu, the first one being: "London's people eat much meat; it makes them very strong; but when they reach 40 to 45 years, they kick the bucket." in https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_sur_l’Angleterre
All of the very remarkable people that self-taught the classics just show that some people born from the working-class managed to read the classics and acquire a culture that was the prerogative of others. But without any estimation on quantity, it shows nothing more.
By the way, today, how much of these classics are left in the popular culture? How many people have read all of the most representative classics, Odyssey and Aeneid? Who reads the authors mentioned in this article, like Plutarch, Herodotes and Xenophon? Even with modern translation easily and freely available, I suppose it amounts to little, even if you can find counter-examples.
It has always been this way; the educated have read these works, studied these works. There is a difference between going to school and being educated; although the vast majority of people go to school and even pursue what some call "higher education", still the truly educated are the minority...and that is because it is hard and people are lazy.
Chomsky has written about how there were quite a few remarkably literate working-class journals in the 19th century. Unfortunately I don't have a link to where he said that.
This looks like a beautiful book, a perfect Christmas gift, thanks! Just one question: it seems that there are two such books with almost identical titles, the one by Sister Miriam Joseph and one by John Michell, Rachel Holley and others. Do you have any advice on the differences? The latter one seems to have a nicer graphic design, and it appears that it’s part of a series of similar books on different disciplines.
I was referring to the Sr. Miriam book, first published 1948. The other seems to be an anthology book, frankly not sure of the quality of the content in it.
>Recovering the working-class classicists of the past can also function as a rallying cry to modern Britain to support the case for the universal availability in schools of classical civilisation and ancient history
This is somewhat begging the question of why those heroic people loved reading and debating the classics. One could argue that working class libraries and the tiny pockets of diverse private education were destroyed by government subsidy and the system of state education. This system now picks the tunes and imposes them universally. To influence a compulsory national curriculum one then has to compete with all the various propagandists anxious themselves to grasp the levers.
The classics were a part of the Zeitgeist essentially - related to the legacy of Rome and Latin as a trade, church, and academic language. It was a universal thing and I believe the works themselves were incidental (although influental) compared to the intellectual culture itself in valuing study.
My father, who was a joiner, gained an abiding interest in Homer from an Oxbridge classics student he was stationed alongside in the RAF in WW2. Explains why my eldest sister is called Helen!
In a similar vein, I wouldn't be where I am today without classical music - playing in an orchestra and chamber music as a young person opened my world up beyond what I could otherwise find in my immediate surroundings. Alongside, growing up reading the English classics now seems part of that, along with radio access to "high brow" programs.
> aeon.co/essays/why-working-class-britons-loved-reading-and-debating-the-classics
How many working class Britons did so and when? By 1800, was it 1%? 10%?
For instance, the article mentions the British Museum in 1782. But there was an entry fee until the 1830s, so I strongly doubt millions of working class people went there, even once in their life.
The anecdote about the slater reading a newspaper on a roof may be true, but it could very well be an urban legend from the 1730s. It's part of the collection of short and amusing notes from Montesquieu, the first one being: "London's people eat much meat; it makes them very strong; but when they reach 40 to 45 years, they kick the bucket." in https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_sur_l’Angleterre
All of the very remarkable people that self-taught the classics just show that some people born from the working-class managed to read the classics and acquire a culture that was the prerogative of others. But without any estimation on quantity, it shows nothing more.
By the way, today, how much of these classics are left in the popular culture? How many people have read all of the most representative classics, Odyssey and Aeneid? Who reads the authors mentioned in this article, like Plutarch, Herodotes and Xenophon? Even with modern translation easily and freely available, I suppose it amounts to little, even if you can find counter-examples.