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Literature and the gods / Roberto Calasso ; translated from the Italian by Tim Parks

By:

Calasso, Roberto, (, 1941-)

Material type: Text

TextPublication details: New York : Knopf : Distributed by Random House , 2001.Edition: 1st American edDescription: 212 p. ; 20 cmISBN:

9780375411380

Uniform titles:

Letteratura e gli dèi . English

Subject(s):

DDC classification:

809.9 CAL

LOC classification:

PN56.M95 C3513 2001

Summary: Anyone who has read Ka or The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony knows that one cannot speed-read Calasso. Like all his other works, this latest by the Italian historian and publisher, based on his Weidenfeld Lectures of May 2000 at Oxford, speaks to an erudite audience. It is not for the easily daunted; to appreciate it, one must know Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Holderlin, Lautramont, Mallarme, and several other important writers and be acquainted with Greco-Roman and Vedic myth. This is not really prose but rather edited oratory, and it comes across that way; you must listen to it more than read it. If you do and put what you hear in the context of 19th- and 20th-century European history and culture, you will understand that the ancient Gods are no longer dead but were reborn to live in our novels and poetry. Here Calasso describes how that came about.

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode
Libro - Monografía	Biblioteca Pública de San Miguel de Allende, A.C.	809.9 CAL (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		042832

Based on the Weidenfeld lectures, Oxford, May 2000--Jkt.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-208) and index.

Anyone who has read Ka or The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony knows that one cannot speed-read Calasso. Like all his other works, this latest by the Italian historian and publisher, based on his Weidenfeld Lectures of May 2000 at Oxford, speaks to an erudite audience. It is not for the easily daunted; to appreciate it, one must know Baudelaire, Nietzsche, Holderlin, Lautramont, Mallarme, and several other important writers and be acquainted with Greco-Roman and Vedic myth. This is not really prose but rather edited oratory, and it comes across that way; you must listen to it more than read it. If you do and put what you hear in the context of 19th- and 20th-century European history and culture, you will understand that the ancient Gods are no longer dead but were reborn to live in our novels and poetry. Here Calasso describes how that came about.

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