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This book examines 'great ideas'- the term used generically to refer to the deep-seated anxieties that art, religion and philosophy all seek to address- in relation to a selection of great literary texts. The texts chosen are those that remain, often centuries after their appearance, beacons of illumination and wisdom. The twelve chapters of this book each deal with one great text and the central idea that propels it.
List of contents
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Acknowledgments and Permissions Chapter 3 The Tragic Affirmation of Rage in Homer's The Iliad Chapter 4 The Religion of Fear in Sophocles' Oedipus the King Chapter 5 The Power of Love in Dante's The Divine Comedy Chapter 6 Rabelais' Vitalism OR Feasting, Flagons, Fornicating, Fighting, Fertility, Farting, Fun and Freedom from Fear and Fools in Gargantua and Pantagruel Chapter 7 Truth and Persuasion in Cervantes' Don Quixote Chapter 8 Wisdom and Mastery in Shakespeare's The Tempest Chapter 9 Will, Pride and Enslavement in Milton's Paradise Lost Chapter 10 Striving in Goethe's Faust Chapter 11 Ennui in Baudelaire's The Flowers of Evil Chapter 12 Parricide and Deicide in Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov Chapter 13 The Monument of Time in Proust's Swann's Way Chapter 14 The Anxiety of Origins and the Trials of Filiation in Joyce's Ulysses Chapter 15 Bibliography Chapter 16 Index
About the author
By Wayne Cristaudo and Peter Poiana
