Subsídios Para Uma História dos Estudos Clássicos

I wouldn't have wanted to spend much time with her. She was far too histrionic, too satisfied with her own cleverness and even more self-obsessed than the average early 20th-century don. But Jane Ellen Harrison changed the way we think about ancient Greek culture – peeling back that calm, white marble exterior to reveal something much more violent, messy and ecstatic underneath ("bloody Jane" they called her, for more reasons than one, I suspect). And she was the first woman in England to become an academic, in the fully professional sense – an ambitious, full-time, salaried, university researcher and lecturer. She made it possible for me to do what I do.

Harrison went up to Cambridge in 1874 to read classics at Newnham College. Though she missed a first (to her life-long annoyance), she was already an academic celebrity – and a trouble-maker. As a student, she even faced down William Gladstone, by claiming that her favourite Greek writer was the sceptical playwright Euripides (not, as the old man hoped, the pious Homer). Taken aback, he stuttered and walked away.

"My Hero: Jane Ellen Harrison", de Mary Beard, no Guardian de sábado — continuar a ler aqui.

imagem: pormenor de um retrato de Jane Ellen Harrison

@ Newnham College, Cambridge