Literature and the Gods [Hardcover]

Roberto Calasso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2001

From the internationally acclaimed author of The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony and Ka, a stunning summation of his lifelong study of the role of the gods in the human imagination. Based on the prestigious Weidenfeld Lectures Roberto Calasso gave at Oxford in May 2000, Literature and the Gods traces the return of pagan divinities to Western literature from their first reappearance at the beginning of the modern era to their place in the literature of our own time.

Calasso sets out to uncover the divine— godly or otherwise—in specific texts, and finds it in what he calls "absolute literature." With its roots in early Vedic verse, absolute literature reached the apex of its expression during the period beginning with the German Romantics in 1798 and ending with Mallarmé's death in 1898. But Calasso also discovers the divine in the work of Valéry, Auden, Yeats, Montale, Borges, and Nabokov, and he reveals how these writers, in their own very particular ways, were articulating the same unnameable thing. Finally, he delineates the timeless, ever-mysterious laws that surround the creative act itself.

With Literature and the Gods, Roberto Calasso profoundly deepens our understanding of our literary tradition. It is, itself, a literary masterpiece.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"One way or another, the world will go on being the place of epiphanies," says literary theorist Calasso (Ka; The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony) in this impressive, weighty and succinct work based on his Weidenfeld Lectures at Oxford last year. Calasso argues that literary texts have always had a religious dimension, whether overtly (as in Homer) or covertly (as in Borges). In the modern era, pre-Christian deities, though often seen as "fugitive guests of literature," have weighed in heavily, asserts Calasso. He elucidates their none-too-obvious influence in a variety of works, both Western and non-Western, from Vedic verse ("the first example of the worship of form") and the Romantic prose of Nietzsche, to the modern poetry of Mallarm? and even the postmodern prose of Nabokov. Calasso sees the 19th century as "the heroic age of absolute literature," which embodies "a knowledge that one assimilates while in search of an absolute, and that thus draws in no less than everything... unbound, freed from any... social utility." Married to certain aesthetics, specifically from German Romanticism through Symbolism, he dismisses much 20th-century poetic experimentalism "embarrassingly labeled as 'modernism' or 'the avant-garde' " for its "aggressive, disruptive forms." Regardless of literary preference, his gorgeous, vivid turns of phrase are a pleasure, and Parks's translation retains Calasso's grace and poise, doing justice to his lovely metaphors ("literature can become an effective stratagem for sneaking the gods out of the universal clinic and getting them back into the world, scattered across its surface where they have always dwelt"). Scholars and general readers of world literature and religion will enjoy this rich, poetic contribution to literary theory, and to poetics in particular. (Mar. 21)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Anyone who has read Ka or The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony knows that one cannot speed-read Calasso. Like all his other works, this latest by the Italian historian and publisher, based on his Weidenfeld Lectures of May 2000 at Oxford, speaks to an erudite audience. It is not for the easily daunted; to appreciate it, one must know Baudelaire, Nietzsche, H lderlin, Lautr amont, Mallarm , and several other important writers and be acquainted with Greco-Roman and Vedic myth. This is not really prose but rather edited oratory, and it comes across that way; you must listen to it more than read it. If you do and put what you hear in the context of 19th- and 20th-century European history and culture, you will understand that the ancient Gods are no longer dead but were reborn to live in our novels and poetry. Here Calasso describes how that came about. Recommended for academic and larger public libraries. James F. DeRoche, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 Amer ed edition (March 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375411380
• ISBN-13: 978-0375411380
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #709,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not an easy read, but full of unique insights, October 17, 2004

By 

C. B Collins Jr. (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Literature and the Gods (Hardcover)

This relatively short book is actually 8 lectures Roberto Calasso delivered at Yale in 2000. I found Calasso's book The Marraige of Cadmus and Harmony to be exceptional. I found two others; The Ruin of Kasch and Ka to be more difficult. These lectures are not as accessible as The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony but neither are they as difficult as Ka, with it's convoluted explanations of Hinduism.

Calasso sees the gods as the energy behind creative thought and thus only a few lucky individuals, with blank brains, are visited by the gods. The human mind is not strong enough to bear the full revelation, but we are able to briefly receive the images offered to us by the gods and struggle to give them shape.

Calasso seems to think that contemporary thought has diminished the god's powers. Yet he knows they are still among us, and have even been joined by a vast herd of Eastern dieties, ready to invade the European mind.

Calasso refutes Voltaire's assertion that the gods are only fables designed by the power hungry priestly class to control the masses. Calasso sees myths as archtypes, patterns, that reveal themselves to men rather than as imply stories invented by men. With sadness, he points out that for a period of 400 years they remained alive mainly in the paintings of Boticelli, Rembrandt, Poussin, and Tiepolo.

The gods not only permeate the arts, Calasso points out that it is myth that holds a people together in community. This attests to myths enduring power over us as a society.

As Nymphs, the gods survived in the visual arts and emerge in such modern masterpieces as Nabokov's Lolita.

Calasso discussed Nietzsche's phenomenological concept that the sciences, and all forms of knowledge, are models of reality, are simulations. This is the the connection between art and science. They both are approximations of reality. Whereas science is forever in flux, being proven and disproven, but remaining useful; art has immediate impact.

The image, the archtype, the vision must have form and this is the job of the artist. In poetry it is the meter. Calasso quotes Proust on the role of structure in giving body to the spirit of inspired thought. Calasso concludes with the concept that three actors are involved in the creative process, the hand that writes, the voice that speaks, the god who watches over and compels. This is related to the ego, the self,and the divine; all of which must mediate the creative process.

Though he quotes Jung only once, I found many of these concepts to be present in the works of Jung, Joseph Campbell, and the essays of Iris Murdoch on the nature of the arts. Calasso challenges the reader's intellect, sometimes leaving us adrift due to his vast knowledge base, but always I found gems of unique insight and fresh interpretations of philosophy and literature.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absorbing Lectures for those interested., August 16, 2002

By 

S. Patel "sajioblo" (Washington, DC United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Literature and the Gods (Hardcover)

Calasso is not an easy author to engage. Simply put, he makes little to no apologies from those that are not as well read he is, and does not waste time trying to have others catch up.

However, in this he is like the college professor who challenges his pupils, offering incredible insight to those who want to educate themselves. In this book, he attempts to connect the old gods, and the very idea of pagan divinity, to the literature of the modern age. His goal is to show us that these concrete expressions of divinity make their way into literature because they are what give literature a spark of the mysterious and divine.

In all honesty, it is hard to tell whether he accomplishes his goal, precisely because I am not up to par with his knowledge. At the same time, like a good professor he stuns me with his eloquence, so much so that I WANT to go and educate myself, to bone up on my literature and return to his lectures.

To any who love learning, I recommend this and Calasso's other books. He has a gift for recognizing and conveying the passion of writers and philosophers.