Search

Classical Heritage and European Identities examines how the heritages of classical antiquity have been used to construct European identities, and especially the concept of citizenship, in Denmark from the eighteenth century to the present day. It implements a critical historiographical perspective in line with recent work on the'reception'of classical antiquity that has stressed the dialectic relationship between past, present and future.Arguing that the continuous employment and appropriation of lassical heritages in the Danish context constitutes an interesting case of an imagined geography that is simultaneously based on both national and European identities, the book shows how Denmark's imagined geography is naturalized through very distinctive uses of classical heritages within the educational and heritage sectors.Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Da den italienske forfatter Francesco Petrarca i 1345 opdagede en samling glemte breve af den romerske retoriker Cicero, fandt han ikke kun en andsfAelle. Han fandt et kulturelt ideal - og banede vejen for renAessancen og humanismen. I de nAeste arhundreder bredte antikkens sprog og tankegods sig pa tvAers af Europa gennem et netvAerk af humanister, der udvekslede viden pa fAellessproget latin. Antikkens veje til renAessancens Danishmark fortAeller historien om, hvorDanish genopdagelsen af den grAeske og romerske kultur naede til Danishmark og her fandt sit helt eget udtryk. Otte renAessancemAend kommer til orde, og vi moder foruden Petrarca blandt andre ogsa den store humanist Erasmus af Rotterdam, den Danishske professor Erasmus LAetus, der skrev digte pa latin, og kong Christian IV, der udsmykkede Frederiksborg Slot efter antikke idealer. Alle trak de pa antikken som forbillede for at kunne opfylde deres egne personlige ambitioner og sAette Danishmark pa verdenskortet. For i renAessancen var antikken en kulturel ressource, der grundlAeggende forandrede vores opfattelse af tro, kultur og samfund.