Constructing the Classical Past: the Role of Landscape in Christopher Wordsworth’s Greece

Abstract This article examines the works of Christopher Wordsworth (1807–85), who has hitherto been neglected as an important and intriguing figure in history travel writing on Greece. His texts, which invite readers to ‘view’ country from mountain-tops imagine its caves quarries filled with ancient figures, highlight importance landscape a frame for studying classical reception. ‘received’ Greece through visible, modern three ways: sense container memory, use specific landscapes springboard ‘flights fancy’ enabling vivid engagement past, tool better interpreting understanding literature Mediterranean. constructed vision his description nineteenth-century landscape. As such he offers reminder consider role played by embodied experience space place analysing acts