The sin of knowledge : ancient themes and modern variations / Theodore Ziolkowski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ziolkowski, Theodore, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adam (Biblical figure)--In literature.

Adam.

Mythology in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (222 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford, England : Princeton University Press, [2000]

Summary:

Adam, Prometheus, and Faust--their stories were central to the formation of Western consciousness and continue to be timely cautionary tales in an age driven by information and technology. Here Theodore Ziolkowski explores how each myth represents a response on the part of ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, and sixteenth-century Christian culture to the problem of knowledge, particularly humankind's powerful, perennial, and sometimes unethical desire for it. This book exposes for the first time the similarities underlying these myths as well as their origins in earlier trickster legends, and considers when and why they emerged in their respective societies. It then examines the variations through which the themes have been adapted by modern writers to express their own awareness of the sin of knowledge. Each myth is shown to capture the anxiety of a society when faced with new knowledge that challenges traditional values. Ziolkowski's examples of recent appropriations of the myths are especially provocative. From Voltaire to the present, the Fall of Adam has provided an image for the emergence from childhood innocence into the consciousness of maturity. Prometheus, as the challenger of authority and the initiator of technological evil, yielded an ambivalent model for the socialist imagination of the German Democratic Republic. And finally, an America unsettled by its responsibility for the atomic bomb, and worrying that in its postwar prosperity it had betrayed its values, recognized in Faust the disturbing image of its soul.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Content

Illustrations

Preface

Prelude. The Timeless Topicality of Myth

Part One. Ancient Themes

Chapter One. Adam: The Genesis of Consciousness

Chapter Two. Prometheus: T h e Birth of Civilization

Chapter Three. Faust: The Ambivalence of Knowledge

Interlude. From Mith to Modernity

Part Two. Modern Variations

Chapter Four. The Secularization of Adam

Chapter Five. The Proletarianization of Prometheus

Chapter Six. The Americanization of Faust

Postlude. On the Uses and Abuses of Myth

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691223940

0691223947

OCLC:

1231563359