Customer Reviews

The Complete Dictionary of Symbols

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have bought several books on symbols recently and this is by far the best. It is well laid out with featured articles, good cross-references and, esp. impressive, footnoting of sources. While no book, especially of the encyclopeidic kind, can be "Complete" -- an admittedly pretentious title -- this book comes close. That's just marketing (like all the new cars and shaving cream advertised as the "ultimate" this or that . . .) The illustrations in this book, mostly line drawings, are attractive and well chosen. Whereas, the illustrations in other symbols books (such as Biedermann's "Dictionary of Symbolism") seem arbitrarily chosen, perhaps for their lack of copyright (!) or just for dramatic effect.
For what it is, unless you've got your own private Wikipedia, I don't see how anyone could be disappointed by this book.

The layout of the book and the information it includes is well put together. It reads like an encyclopedia with diagrams and is quite thorough with explaining the significance of the symbols throughout the world's history and in mythology.

I refer to the book more often than I anticipated that I would. I use it for referencing symbol origins and their meanings of course, and surprisingly I find that using the book for dream interpretation works excellently.

For anyone who regards symbolism as important, I give the book my highest recommendation.

"This accessible reference guide presents more than 2,000 themes, figures, and symbols that appear in the arts, literature, and religion. It draws on classical mythologies, Biblical themes, and traditional symbols from cultures worldwide. The Complete Dictionary of Symbols has entries on plants and animals, gods and goddesses, supernatural creatures, heroes, saints, and hundreds of other subjects." (summary by South TX Library System)

Not too bad, but it needs to be titled The Complete Dictionary of Mythology. I'd say three quarter of this book is mythological figures. I wanted a book on visual symbols, which this book is not.

Someone was looking for the "Celtic" symbols of a couple of concepts, and dipping into this tome was a waste of time. The illustrations are meager and have no genuinely illustrative value, just decorations:
[Earth] no symbol depicted, in anyone's system,
[Cornucopia] no symbol depicted, in anyone's system,
[Ginseng] no picture
[Fasces] no picture
[Fools and folly] no picture,
and so on. This is, in fact, a dictionary of mythology (in a way). Most people looking for symbols are looking to get a tattoo, and want to make sure that the graphic doo-dad they're about to have graven into their --- doesn't mean something OTHER than what they mean it to mean.
Well, at least you can just make something up and argue about it. You can't do that with Chinese characters. Meanings too definite, and too many people know what they mean. Stick to something woozy, used by people long dead.