Know Thyself
Western Identity from Classical Greece to the Renaissance
1 of 1 copy available
A lively and timely introduction to the roots of self-understanding—who we are and how we should act—in the cultures of ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and Middle Ages and the Renaissance
"Know thyself"—this fundamental imperative appeared for the first time in ancient Greece, specifically in Delphi, the temple of the god Apollo, who represented the enlightened power of reason. For the Greeks, self-knowledge and identity were the basics of their civilization and their sources were to be found in where one was born and into which social group. These determined who you were and what your duties were. In this book the independent scholar Ingrid Rossellini surveys the major ideas that, from Greek and Roman antiquity through the Christian medieval era up to the dawn of modernity in the Renaissance, have guided the Western project of self-knowledge. Addressing the curious lay reader with an interdisciplinary approach that includes numerous references to the visual arts, Know Thyself will reintroduce readers to the most profound and enduring ways our civilization has framed the issues of self and society, in the process helping us rediscover the very building blocks of our personality.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
May 22, 2018 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9780525531876
- File size: 424428 KB
- Duration: 14:44:13
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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March 19, 2018
A scholar of Italian literature and European history tackles an ambitious project: tracing changing ideas about collective versus individual identity from 2000 BCE to the 16th century. According to Rossellini, her work is intended for lay readers, but, unfortunately, the theoretical framework—the shift from communitarian to individualistic thinking, and the implications for civil society—is so loosely constructed that it feels more like a thread lost in an enormous tapestry. Major figures share slivers of Rossellini’s expansive time line in close proximity: two Holy Roman Emperors, Charlemagne and Otto I, and one pope, John XII, share a single paragraph. The book has glimmers of wonder, as when the author conveys the essence (and putrefying flesh) of a fascinating character, a solitary ascetic: “the most extravagant anchorite of all was Simeon Stylites, who lived perched on a 60-foot-high column for 30 uninterrupted years” anchored by a rope that cut into his body. Rossellini’s epic is dazzling, disorienting, and ultimately disappointing—too often a catalogue of names, dates, and places that falls short of her stated aim of promoting a more civic-minded sensibility in a self-centric moment.
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