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Author:

Ni' Mheallaigh, Karen, author.

Title:

The Moon in the Greek and Roman imagination : myth, literature, science and philosophy / Karen ni Mheallaigh.

Publisher:

Cambridge University Press,

Copyright Date:

2020

Description:

xiv, 322 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Subject:

Moon--In literature.
Greek literature--History and criticism.
Literature and science--Greece--History--To 1500.
Voyages, Imaginary.
Extraterrestrial beings in literature.
Greece--Civilization.
Civilization.
Extraterrestrial beings in literature.
Greek literature.
Literature.
Literature and science.
Voyages, Imaginary.
Greece.
Moon.
To 1500
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents:

Part I: The Moon in the mythic imagination. Introduction : To the Moon! Journey into the ancient scientific imagination ; The Moon in ritual, myth and magic -- Part II: The moon in the scientific imagination. Making sense of the Moon : philosophy and science ; Life on the Moon : between philosophy, science and fantasy; The Moon of many faces : Plutarch's great lunar dialogue De facie -- Part III: The moon in the fantastic imagination.The imaginary moon : lunar journeys -- Selenoskopia : the moon-view from fiction to reality ; Envoi : The legacy of ancient selenography.

Summary:

"The Moon exerted a powerful influence on ancient intellectual history, as a playground for the scientific imagination. This book explores the history of the Moon in the Greco-Roman imaginary from Homer to Lucian, with special focus on those accounts of the Moon, its attributes, and its 'inhabitants' given by ancient philosophers, natural scientists and imaginative writers including Pythagoreans, Plato and the Old Academy, Varro, Plutarch and Lucian. Ni Mheallaigh shows how the Moon's enigmatic presence made it a key site for thinking about the gaze (erotic, philosophical and scientific) and the relation between appearance and reality. It was also a site for hoax in antiquity as well as today. Central issues explored include the view from elsewhere (selenoskopia), the relation of science and fiction, the interaction between the beginnings of science in the classical polis and the imperial period, and the limits of knowledge itself."-- Provided by publisher.

Series:

Greek culture in the Roman world

ISBN:

1108716288
9781108716284
1108483038
9781108483032

OCLC:

(OCoLC)1121083086

LCCN:

2019048456

Locations:

OVUX522 -- University of Iowa Libraries (Iowa City)