The Image of Antiquity: Ancient Britain and the Romantic Imagination

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Hardcover. VG. light shelf-wear to lower cover edges & corners. creasing to spine end. dustjacket back cover has edge-wear, scuffs & scratches.. Green cloth with no dustjacket. x, 252 pp. Many bw plates. Smiles examines the interplay of antiquarian research, historiography, and the visual arts in constructing an image of Britain from prehistoric times to the arrival of the Saxons. He discusses such topics as the lengthening of prehistoric time in the contemporary view, the status of antiquarian learning, and the celebration of ancestral peoples as an offshoot of the growing sense of national identity. He describes the Celtic revival during the late eighteenth century, with its iconography that fashioned a pictorial repertoire for megaliths, bards, Druids, and the patriotic leaders Boadicea and Caractacus, who fought off the Romans. He also explains why the Victorians downgraded the Celts and replaced them with the Saxons, preferred by Victorians because they were Christians, because they were English (rather than British), and because they had established organized kingdoms.--Amazon.