Myths of the Odyssey in the British Museum (and beyond): Jane Ellen Harrison’s museum talks and their audience

Abstract

Jane Ellen Harrison’s early work giving tours and lectures in London’s museums offers an unusual window on visitor experience in the late nineteenth century. This article examines the composition and motivations of her audience, looking at how Harrison’s lectures addressed gendered and class-based anxieties about their access to education and ability to respond appropriately to prestigious objects. Harrison used Greek vases to tell stories from ancient Greek literature. She made the case for the value of Greek vases as a repository of stories that could be understood through comparisons with literature but which also stood as evidence in their own right, hinting at lost stories and the perspectives of ordinary people. Her museum talks demonstrate a belief that Greek vases offered an alternative to Classical literature, one which had been made by ordinary people in the past and could be ‘read’ by ordinary people in the present.