Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Volume 1: Books I-V (The I Tatti Renaissance Library) Throughout the Genealogy, Boccaccio deploys an array of allegorical, historical, and philological critiques of the ancient myths and their iconography. The complete work in fifteen books conta
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| Title | : | Genealogy of the Pagan Gods, Volume 1: Books I-V (The I Tatti Renaissance Library) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.52 (457 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0674057104 |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 928 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2011-05-31 |
| Genre | : |
Giovanni Boccaccio’s Genealogy of the Pagan Gods is an ambitious work of humanistic scholarship whose goal is to plunder ancient and medieval literary sources so as to create a massive synthesis of Greek and Roman mythology. The work also contains a famous defense of the value of studying ancient pagan poetry in a Christian world. The complete work in fifteen books contains a meticulously organized genealogical tree identifying approximately 950 Greco-Roman mythological figures. The scope is enormous: 723 chapters include over a thousand citations from two hundred Greek, Roman, medieval, and Trecento authors. Throughout the Genealogy, Boccaccio deploys an array of allegorical, historical, and philological critiques of the ancient myths and their iconography. Much more than a mere compilation of pagan myths, the Genealogy incorporates hundreds of excerpts from and comments on ancient poetry, illustrative of the new spirit of philological and cultural inquiry e
Editorial : A truly stupendous effort in which Boccaccio references hundreds of ancient Greek and Roman sources in over a thousand citations--a stunningly masterful synthesis of all classical mythology, running to over 700 chapters. The whole thing is an utterly amazing performance, a towering masterpiece of Renaissance humanism, and here, as one of the latest entries in Harvard University Press' I Tatti Renaissance Library, it gets its very first unabridged translation into English. Jon Solomon does the honors, everywhere using a deftly light touch that works perfectly to bring out the relatively straightforward simplicity, sometimes called "arid" by those who go into the work expecting frolics in the Tuscan hills, of the Latin Boccaccio uses in this teeming workThis I Tatti volume is in itself a mighty achievement, and when it's joined by its companion volumes, all attractively produced and supplied with the extensive critical apparatus most modern readers will need for a work that isn't entirel
My fourth and fifth grade reluctant readers loved this book. however, in most of these stories, the narrative often evolves into an unending series of battles, with the exploration of the world, or the human aspect of it moved to the background.
but not so here! what redeems this story from becoming all of the above is a careful balance between avoiding the trap of techno-babble overload, a valid history lesson about politics religion and philosophy in the 16th century, and above all, wit and warmth to the protagonists, that in itself is acheived by an economy of words that in itself is a lesson in avoiding over-emotionality at the expense of a plot. But the past always comes back to find you and when it does will it be the salvation of this couple or the undoing?
This book will have readers sighing over the romance and amazed by the historical significance of the story, unable to put the book down. But I think this is the answers to our problems! Awesome read. Si
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