Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Literature and the Gods

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calasso’s lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.

From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of “absolute literature” transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates.

Language: English

Pages: 224

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Vintage

Release: June 04, 2002

ISBN: 0375725431

ISBN 13: 9780375725432

Literature and the Gods

3.9/5 ( ratings)

Brilliant, inspired, and gloriously erudite, Literature and the Gods is the culmination of Roberto Calasso’s lifelong study of the gods in the human imagination. By uncovering the divine whisper that lies behind the best poetry and prose from across the centuries, Calasso gives us a renewed sense of the mystery and enchantment of great literature.

From the banishment of the classical divinities during the Age of Reason to their emancipation by the Romantics and their place in the literature of our own time, the history of the gods can also be read as a ciphered and splendid history of literary inspiration. Rewriting that story, Calasso carves out a sacred space for literature where the presence of the gods is discernible. His inquiry into the nature of “absolute literature” transports us to the realms of Dionysus and Orpheus, Baudelaire and Mallarmé, and prompts a lucid and impassioned defense of poetic form, even when apparently severed from any social function. Lyrical and assured, Literature and the Gods is an intensely engaging work of literary affirmation that deserves to be read alongside the masterpieces it celebrates.

Language: English

Pages: 224

Format: Paperback

Publisher: Vintage

Release: June 04, 2002

ISBN: 0375725431

ISBN 13: 9780375725432

More books from Tim Parks

Contempt

Italian Neighbors

3.7/5 ( ratings)

The Complete Cosmicomics

4.2/5 ( ratings)

Sweet Days of Discipline

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo

3.7/5 ( ratings)

A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character . . . and Goals!

4.1/5 ( ratings)

An Italian Education

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Indian Nocturne

3.8/5 ( ratings)

Teach Us to Sit Still: A Sceptic's Search for Health and Healing

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Medici Money: Banking, Metaphysics, and Art in Fifteenth-Century Florence

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Ka: Stories of the Mind and Gods of India

4.1/5 ( ratings)

Party Going

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Stop What You're Doing and Read This!

3.6/5 ( ratings)

Where I'm Reading From: The Changing World of Books

3.5/5 ( ratings)

The Voyeur

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Rate this book!

Write a review?