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E-book
Author Ziolkowski, Theodore

Title The sin of knowledge : ancient themes and modern variations / Theodore Ziolkowski
Published Princeton : Princeton University Press, ©2000

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 222 pages) : illustrations
Contents Prelude: The Timeless Topicality of Myth -- pt. 1. Ancient Themes. Ch. 1. Adam: The Genesis of Consciousness. Ch. 2. Prometheus: The Birth of Civilization. Ch. 3. Faust: The Ambivalence of Knowledge. Interlude: From Myth to Modernity -- pt. 2. Modern Variations. Ch. 4. The Secularization of Adam. Ch. 5. The Proletarianization of Prometheus -- Ch. 6. The Americanization of Faust -- Postlude: On the Uses and Abuses of Myth
The timeless topicality of myth -- Ancient themes. Adam: the genesis of consciousness. The Biblical fall -- Near Eastern sources -- The paradox of knowledge in Solomon's Jerusalem -- Prometheus: the birth of civilization. Hesiod's trickster -- Aeschylus's culture-hero -- From Boeotia to Athens -- Faust: the ambivalence of knowledge. The historical Faust -- The growth of the legend -- The chapbook speculator -- Marlowe's power seeker -- From myth to modernity -- Modern variations. The secularization of Adam. Candide's fall -- The typological impulse -- Romantic tragicomic falls -- American ambiguities -- modern ironies -- The proletarianization of Prometheus. From myth to Marx -- Modern metaphors -- Marxist myths -- GDR ambiguities -- Three major re-visions -- The enemy of the people -- The Americanization of Faust. Modernizations of the myth -- Faust and the bomb -- Playful Fausts of the fifties -- A blue-collar Faust -- Professorial Fausts -- Fausts of politics and poetry -- Fausts for the nineties -- On the uses and abuses of myth
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."--Jacket
Analysis Adapa
Aeschylus
Anacreon
Anaxagoras
Apollodorus
Beethoven, Ludwig van
Berman, Marshall
Borrow, Anthony
Camerarius, Joachim
Cleisthenes
Dali, Salvador
Damn Yankees
Dickens, Charles
Don Juan
Dyson, Freeman
Edwards, Jonathan
Erasmus, Desiderius
Greene, Graham
Hamlet
Heine, Heinrich
Herodotus
Herseyjohn
Hesiod
Institoris, Heinrich
Jerome, Saint
Jerusalem
Jonson, Ben
Keim, Andrew
Kirsch, Rainer
Klinger, Max
Kreitzer, Larry
Kupelwieser, Leopold
Legenda Aurea
Mailer, Norman
Mainzer, Otto
Malleus Maleficorum
Melanchthon, Philipp
Napoleon
Nono, Luigi
Olson, Elder
Orff, Carl
Paul, Saint
Peisistratus
Poussin, Nicholas
Prometheia
Quinet, Edgar
biblical criticism
chapbook
curiositas
etiology
forbidden knowledge
pact with devil
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 193-216) and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Adam (Biblical figure) -- In literature
Prometheus (Greek deity) -- In literature
Faust, -approximately 1540 -- In literature
SUBJECT Faust, -approximately 1540 -- In literature
Adam (Biblical figure) -- In literature
Adam (Biblical figure) fast
Faust, -approximately 1540 fast
Prometheus (Greek deity) fast
Faust, Johann -- Motiv -- Literatur. idsbb
Prometheus -- Motiv -- Literatur. idsbb
Adam -- Motiv -- Literatur. idsbb
Faust, Johannes -- Motiv (Literatur) idszbz
Prometheus -- Motiv (Literatur) idszbz
Adam -- Motiv (Literatur) idszbz
Adam. swd
Prometheus. swd
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang{von. swd
Faust. swd
Subject Mythology in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- General.
Literature
Mythology in literature
Wissen Motiv
Faustdichtung
Literatur
Erkenntnis
Sünde
Mythos
Mythologie.
Letterkunde.
Literatur -- Motiv -- Faust, Johann.
Literatur -- Motiv -- Adam.
Literatur -- Motiv -- Prometheus.
Mythos -- Motiv (Literatur)
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9780691223940
0691223947