Looking upwards : stars in ancient and medieval cultures / Piero Boitani.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boitani, Piero, author.

Series:

Contemporary Cultural Studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stars in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource.

Place of Publication:

New York, [New York] : Nova Science Publishers, 2017.

Summary:

This book recounts the exciting tale of human beings relationship with the stars. It covers that tale from prehistory and antiquity to the Middle Ages, going as far as the year 1400 CE, the year of Geoffrey Chaucers death in England. This volume is not an astronomy textbook, nor a history of astronomy. It is a book that intends to explore, or present, the image of the stars that, throughout history, humanity constructed for itself: the image, that is, as it was transmitted through literature, the visual arts, and music. In doing so, it was of course impossible to avoid those frequent and fruitful moments when the arts encountered science, philosophy, and religion. Looking Upwards is the result of this constant historical interweaving. The lodestar for this book was the search for cosmic poetry, for beauty, and for the sublime for the enthusiasm and the terror that writers, painters, and composers of all ages and continents have directed towards the stars. From the dawn of human civilisation to the end of the fourteenth century, Looking Upwards traces the human passion for the cosmos in chronological order and West to East geographic movement from Paleolithic caves to Egyptian pyramids, in Ur of the Chaldees (from where Abraham came), in classical Greece and Rome, from medieval Europe to Persia, India, China and Japan. Domes of Heaven in Constantinople and Ravenna, in Jerusalem and Granada, star vaults and mosaics, frescoes and stone engravings appear all over the planet. The music of the spheres resonates from Pythagoras to Shakespeare, from the songs of Native Americans to those of the Australian Aborigines. Homers poetry influences Virgil, Boethius inspires Dante, the Bible and Arabic literature are reflected in the work of Shelomoh Ibn Gabirol, Omar Khayyām and Hāfez find a new life in Edward Fitzgerald and Goethe, the Rāmāyana reverberates in Kālidāsa, and Du Fu finds companionship in Japanese haikus. Looking Upwards is a book of world literature, because people all over the world can sing, with the Abenaki of North America: We Are the Stars Who Sing.

Contents:

Preface

Note on texts, translations, and editions

Introduction

At the beginning

The morning stars

Stars of the empire

The ways of the dark night

From dream to apocalypse

Divinity, life, perfume: the music and dance of the spheres

The music of the spheres

The vaults of heaven

Caelatum: creation and chiseling

Flaming cusps

Black brocade

The beauty of lakes

Snow white

We are the stars who sing

Sparks and embers

From eternal nymphs to beautiful stars

Blissful light, clear beams.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-5361-0349-7