Theodore Ziolkowski, Minos and the Moderns: Cretan Myth in Twentieth-century Literature and Art, Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, coll. "Classical Presences", 2008, xii-173p.
Isbn: 9780195336917 (hardcover)
Compte rendu par Constanze Güthenke (Princeton University) dans Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2008.12.25
Présentation de l'éditeur:
Minos and the Moderns considersthree mythological complexes that enjoyed a unique surge of interest inearly twentieth-century European art and literature: Europa and thebull, the minotaur and the labyrinth, and Daedalus and Icarus. Allthree are situated on the island of Crete and are linked by the figureof King Minos. Drawing examples from fiction, poetry, drama, painting,sculpture, opera, and ballet, Minos and the Moderns is the first book of its kind to treat the role of the Cretan myths in the modern imagination.
Beginning with the resurgence of Crete in the modern consciousness in1900 following the excavations of Sir Arthur Evans, Theodore Ziolkowskishows how the tale of Europa-in poetry, drama, and art, but also incartoons, advertising, and currency-was initially seized upon as astory of sexual awakening, then as a vehicle for social and politicalsatire, and finally as a symbol of European unity. In contast, theminotaur provided artists ranging from Picasso to Durrenmatt with animage of the artist's sense of alienation, while the labyrinthsuggested to many writers the threatening sociopolitical world of thetwentieth century. Ziolkowski also considers the roles of such modernfigures as Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud; of travelers to Greece and Cretefrom Isadora Duncan to Henry Miller; and of the theorists and writers,including T. S. Eliot and Thomas Mann, who hailed the use of myth inmodern literature.
Minos and the Modernsconcludes with a summary of the manners in which the economic,aesthetic, psychological, and anthropological revisions enabledprecisely these myths to be taken up as a mirror of modernconsciousness. The book will appeal to all readers interested in theclassical tradition and its continuing relevance and especially toscholars of Classics and modern literatures.
Theodore Ziolkowski is Class of 1900 Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Emeritus, at Princeton University. He is the author of Virgil and the Moderns and Ovid and the Moderns, as well as The Sin of Knowledge, German Romanticism and Its Institutions, Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief, and The Mirror of Justice: Literary Reflections of Legal Crises.
Sommaire:
Introduction : the modernization of myth -- Europa and the bull : sex, society, and politics -- The minotaur : the beast within and the threat outside -- The other Cretans : alienation, invention, liberation -- Conclusion : the modernity of myt