000			01728nam a2200265 a 4500
001			042832
005			20231009192724.0
008			120413s2001 nyu b 001 0 eng
010			_a2001275881
020			_a9780375411380
050	0	0	_aPN56.M95 _bC3513 2001
082	0	0	_a809.9 CAL
100	1		_aCalasso, Roberto _d(, 1941-)
240	1	0	_aLetteratura e gli dèi _l. English
245	1	0	_aLiterature and the gods _c/ Roberto Calasso ; translated from the Italian by Tim Parks
250			_a1st American ed.
260			_aNew York _b: Knopf _b: Distributed by Random House _c, 2001.
300			_a212 p. _c; 20 cm.
500			_aBased on the Weidenfeld lectures, Oxford, May 2000--Jkt.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 195-208) and index.
520			_aAnyone 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.
650		0	_aMythology, Classical
650		0	_aGods in literature
942			_cMO
999			_c249485 _d249485