Birth of the symbol : ancient readers at the limits of their texts / Peter T. Struck.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Struck, Peter T.

Series:

ACLS Fellows' publications.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Classical poetry--History and criticism.

Classical poetry.

Symbolism in literature.

Books and reading--Greece.

Books and reading.

Books and reading--Rome.

Rhetoric, Ancient.

Allegory.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (331 p.)

Edition:

Course Book

Other Title:

Ancient readers at the limits of their texts

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Nearly all of us have studied poetry and been taught to look for the symbolic as well as literal meaning of the text. Is this the way the ancients saw poetry? In Birth of the Symbol, Peter Struck explores the ancient Greek literary critics and theorists who invented the idea of the poetic "symbol." The book notes that Aristotle and his followers did not discuss the use of poetic symbolism. Rather, a different group of Greek thinkers--the allegorists--were the first to develop the notion. Struck extensively revisits the work of the great allegorists, which has been underappreciated. He links their interest in symbolism to the importance of divination and magic in ancient times, and he demonstrates how important symbolism became when they thought about religion and philosophy. "They see the whole of great poetic language as deeply figurative," he writes, "with the potential always, even in the most mundane details, to be freighted with hidden messages." Birth of the Symbol offers a new understanding of the role of poetry in the life of ideas in ancient Greece. Moreover, it demonstrates a connection between the way we understand poetry and the way it was understood by important thinkers in ancient times.

Contents:

Front matter

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Introduction. The Genealogy of the Symbolic

1. Symbols and Riddles: Allegorical Reading and the Boundaries of the Text

2. Beginnings to 300 B.C.E.: Meaning from the Void of Chance and the Silence Of The Secret

3. From the Head of Zeus: The Birth of the Literary Symbol

4. Swallowed Children and Bound Gods: The Diffusion of The Literary Symbol

5. 300 B.C.E.-200 C.E.: The Symbol as Ontological Signifier

6. Iamblichus and the Defense of Ritual: Talismanic Symbols

7 Moonstones and Men that Glow: Proclus and the Talismanic Signifier

Epilogue. Symbol Traces: Post-Proclean Theories

Appendix. Chrysippus'S Reading and Authorial Intention: The Case of the Mural at Samos

Bibliography Of Ancient Authors

Bibliography Of Modern Authors

Index Locorum

General Index

Notes:

Based on author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Chicago.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [283]-296) and indexes.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612087431

9786612935367

9781282087439

1282087436

9781282935365

1282935364

9781400826094

1400826098

OCLC:

368312289