Journal of British Studies | 2021
Nandini Das and Tim Youngs , eds. The Cambridge History of Travel Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. 656. $175.00 (cloth).
Abstract
Greek and Roman sources, which are usefully illustrated. The last essay, by Maria Luisa Napolitano, describes Hubertus Goltzius’s use of coinage in Greek Sicily, the subject of his sole work on the subject, Sicilia et Magna Graecia, where Napolitano reconciles Goltzius’s Hellenism with humanist Italy’s interest in “Romanness.” The final subsection, “Humanist Greek and the Reformation,” centers on Germany and the Nordic and Baltic states in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Stefan Weise looks to Georg Lizel’s Greek poetry to illuminate the use of Greek in wider European contexts. Weise’s appendix of works related to Lizel is very useful and succinctly provides more information on this German author. Janika Päll concludes the subsection by extending the scope for receptions of Hellenism through the Nordic and Baltic countries, with a focus on Sweden. She examines teaching practices and the use of Greek in contexts such as universities or in occasional poetry. This insight into Hellenism in often overlooked countries such as Latvia and Sweden is much welcomed. Receptions of Hellenism in Early Modern Europe: 15th–17th Centuries is an engaging and wide-ranging volume for both historians and classicists, detailing with a diverse range of Greek receptions in this important period.