The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (140 page)

Chapter 20.
For Family, Empire—and
History. In addition to the references for Chapters 14 and 15 above, relevant illustrated articles are found in
The Encyclopedia of World Art
. For background topics: John Boardman et al., eds.,
The Oxford History of the Classical World
and
The Oxford Classical Dictionary
. Readable focused studies include: George M. Hanfmann,
Roman Art: A Modern Survey of the Art of Imperial Rome
(1965); A. W. Lawrence,
Greek and Roman Sculpture
(1972); J. J. Pollitt,
The Art of Rome c.753
B.C.
–
A.D
. 337: Sources and Documents
(1966).

Chapter 21. The Healing Image
. This critical moment for the history of Western art is not sufficiently noted in histories of Western culture. The reference notes for Chapters 6, 7, and 15 above provide background, supplemented by some excellent articles on figures and topics in the Iconoclastic controversy in Mircea Eliade, ed.,
The Encyclopedia of Religion
(16 vols., 1987), in Joseph Strayer, ed.,
The Dictionary of the Middle Ages
(1982–89), and the relevant chapters in Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
. The best introduction to the theological issues is Jaroslav Pelikan,
Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons
(1990), with his
Christian Tradition
, Vol. 2. For details, documents, and interpretive essays, see the
Dumbarton Oaks Papers:
Gerhart B. Ladner (1953), Ernst Kitzinger (1954), A. A. Vasiliev (1956). For the social context: Gerhart B. Ladner,
The Idea of Reform … in the Age of the Fathers
(1967); Romilly Jenkins,
Byzantium: The Imperial Centuries
(1966); and the vivid Steven Runciman,
Byzantine Style and Civilization
(1987).

Chapter 22. “Satan’s Handiwork.”
For background essays, see
The Encyclopedia of Religion
and, for particular artists,
The Encyclopedia of World Art
. And for the broader Muslim context: Gustave von Grunebaum,
Medieval Islam
(2d ed., 1971); Thomas W. Arnold and Alfred Guillaume, eds.,
The Legacy of Islam
(1931). On the arts: Thomas W. Arnold,
Painting in Islam … the place of pictorial art in Muslim culture
(1965); Annemarie Schimmel,
Calligraphy and Islamic Culture
(1984); Oleg Grabar,
The Formation of Islamic Art
(1973); Bernard Lewis,
The Muslim Discovery of Europe
(1982), Chapter X, “Cultural Life.”

Chapter 23. Dionysus the Twice-Born; Chapter 24. The Birth of the Spectator: From Ritual to Drama; Chapter 25. The Mirror of Comedy
. For the background in ancient Greek culture, see references for Chapters 04, 11, and 19, and Mircea Eliade,
History of Religious Ideas
, Vol. 2 (1982); W.K.C. Guthrie,
The Greeks and Their Gods
(1955); Lewis R. Farnell,
The Cults of the Greek States
(1909); E. R. Dodds,
The Greeks and the Irrational
(1951). On Dionysus and his festivals: Jane Ellen Harrison,
Themis
(1962); illuminating works by Arthur Pickard-Cambridge,
The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens
(1946),
The Dramatic Festivals of Athens
(1953),
Dithyramb Tragedy and Comedy
(2d ed., 1962), and A. E. Haigh, ed.,
The Attic Theatre
(3d ed., 1969).

Ancient Greek literature has elicited eloquent critics as well as emulators, like the friends and enemies satirized in Jonathan Swift’s
Battle of the Books
(1704). An appealing account of the ancient Greeks’ view of culture is Werner Jaeger,
Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture
(3 vols., 1973–86). Modern critics have made Greek drama a standard for their judgments of Shakespeare, Goethe, and Shaw. Readable surveys of the place of ancient Greek drama in literary history: Margarete Bieber,
The History of Greek and Roman Theater
(1939); Jane Ellen Harrison,
Ancient Art and Ritual
(1923); Allardyce Nicoll,
The Development of the Theatre
(5th ed., 1966). An excellent introduction is H.D.F. Kitto,
Greek Tragedy
(1955); then C. M. Bowra,
Sophoclean Tragedy
(1944); Gilbert Murray,
Euripides and His Age
(1913),
Aristophanes
(1933; 1964); Victor Ehrenberg,
The People of Aristophanes
(3d ed., 1962), which puts the characters in their time.

Of the many translations of Greek drama, among the most accessible are David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, eds.,
The Complete Greek Tragedies
(4 vols., 1959), and Whitney J. Oates and Eugene O’Neill, Jr., eds.
The Complete Greek Drama
(2 vols., 1938).

Chapter 26. The Arts of Prose and Persuasion
. For the Arts of Memory, see my
The Discoverers
, Chapter 60. In addition
to the general works above, for ancient Greek education, see: H. I. Marrou,
A History of Education in Antiquity
(1956); William M. Small, ed. and trans.,
Quintillian on Education
(1966). For prose, rhetoric, and oratory: J. B. Bury,
The Ancient Greek Historians
(1958); J. F. Dobson,
The Greek Orators
(1919); George Kennedy,
The Art of Persuasion in Greece
(1963); Ivan M. Linfooth,
Solon the Athenian
(1919). And for the relation of rhetoric to philosophy, Bertrand Russell’s stimulating and opinionated
History of Western Philosophy
(1945). Texts of Herodotus, Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle are available in
The Great Books of the Western World
. These and other Greek classics are in numerous translations and paperback editions, including the Penguin Classics. Of Plutarch’s many translations, that by T. North (1599) was a sourcebook for Shakespeare, but the fluent translation by John Dryden has been most popular through the centuries. Convenient access to the major Greek historians in some of the best translations is Francis R. B. Godolphin, ed.,
The Greek Historians
(2 vols., 1942).

For the legacy of the Middle Ages there is no more delightful introduction than Morris Bishop,
The Middle Ages
(1970), and J. Huizinga,
The Waning of the Middle Ages
(1970), to liberate us from the stereotypes that Henry Adams’s
Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres
(1913, 1986) and his
Education
(1918, 1974) did much to create. Another antidote is Lynn White, Jr.,
Dynamo and Virgin Reconsidered
(1971). We must not forget that Gibbon’s
Decline and Fall
does not end till 1453 and has much to tell us about this era. For particular topics,
The Encyclopedia of Religion
and
The Dictionary of the Middle Ages
. And for background: Henri Pirenne’s elegant and cogent
Mohammed and Charlemagne
(1939),
Medieval Cities
(1952); H. O. Taylor’s suggestive
The Medieval Mind
(2 vols., 4th ed., 1930); E. K. Rand,
Founders of the Middle Ages
(1928, 1982); William Anderson,
Dante the Maker
(1980); Christopher Dawson,
The Making of Europe
(1956), and the deft collection of documents in
The Portable Medieval Reader
(1967).

Chapter 27.
The Consoling Past
. For Boethius’s life, see Margaret Gibson, ed.,
Boethius, His Life, Thought and Influence
(1981); and for his afterlife, Howard Rollin Patch,
The Tradition of Boethius
(1935).
The Consolation of Philosophy
(V. E. Watts, trans., 1969) is conveniently available in a Penguin paperback; and see
Boethius, Fundamentals of Music
(Calvin M. Bower, trans., 1969), and
The Theological Tractates
(H. F. Stewart and E. K. Rand, trans., 1918).

Chapter 28.
The Music of the Word
. For background and special topics, in addition to the general works above, the cogent
New Harvard Dictionary of Music
(Don Michael Randel, ed., 1986) and the
New Oxford Companion to Music
(2 vols., Denis Arnold, ed., rev. 1990) help us before taking the plunge into the copious
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
(20 vols., Stanley Sadie, ed., 1980). Two excellent durable works for putting the music in context: Hugo Leichentritt,
Music, History, and Ideas
(1939); Paul Henry Lang,
Music in Western Civilization
(1941); and the textbook Donald Jay Grout,
A History of Western Music
(rev. 1973). For the period, lively texts: Willi Apel,
Gregorian Chant
(2d ed., 1966),
Medieval Music
(1986); Richard H. Hoppin,
Medieval Music
(1978); Andrew Hughes,
Medieval Music: The Sixth Liberal Art
(1980). For comprehensive lives: F. Homes Dudden,
Life and Times of St. Ambrose
(2 vols., 1935),
Gregory the Great: His Place in History and Thought
(2 vols., 1967). For Saint Augustine’s
De Musica
, there is a synopsis (by W. F. Jackson Knight, 1979) and a collection of essays,
Augustine on Music
(Richard H. LaCrois, ed., 1988).

Chapter 29.
An Architecture of Light
. For a lively introduction to the age, begin with Amy Kelly,
Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings
(1959), then Georges Duby,
The Age of the Cathedrals: Art and Society 980–1420
(1981). On Suger and St.-Denis we are fortunate in having Otto von Simson’s
brilliant and cogent
The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture and the Medieval Concept of Order
(1988). For a scintillating exploration of the connections with medieval thought: Erwin Panofsky,
Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism
, and for the documents that have luckily survived, Erwin Panofsky, ed.,
Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church at St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures
(2d. ed., 1979). Detailed studies: Sumner McK. Crosby,
The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis, from Its Beginnings to the Death of Suger, 475–1151
(Pamela Z. Blum, ed., 1987),
The Apostle Bas-Relief at Saint-Denis
(1972), and
The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Abbot Suger (1122–1151)
, a catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1981). For the rich afterlife: Paul Frankl,
The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries
(1960) and a classic study by Émile Mâle,
Religious Art from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century
(1949); Kenneth Clark,
The Gothic Revival
(new ed., 1962), a Penguin paperback. And the views of recent scholars, Paula Lieber Gerson, ed.,
Abbot Suger and Saint-Denis, a Symposium
(1986).

Chapter 30. Adventures in Death
. Coming to Dante anew, as some English readers will, it is hard not to be daunted by his “divine” reputation and the copious literature. T. S. Eliot, an adorer of Dante, can lead us with his essay in
Selected Essays
(1932). A good factual introduction and guide into the literature is Robert Hollander’s article in the
Dictionary of the Middle Ages
. William Anderson,
Dante the Maker
(1980) helps us into Dante’s world by treating his work straightforwardly as the visions of a believer, as does Jaroslav Pelikan,
Eternal Feminines: Three Theological Allegories in Dante’s Paradiso
(1990), which can be compared with Erich Auerbach,
Dante: Poet of the Secular World
(1961), and E. K. Rand,
Founders of the Middle Ages
(1982). Ricardo J. Quinones,
Dante
(1985) provides a concise guide to the relation between Dante’s life and his writings. Paget Toynbee,
Dante Alighieri
(6th ed., 1924) remains useful, with his study of the afterlife,
Dante in English Literature
(2 vols., 1909). For the institutions and literature of courtly love, see C. S. Lewis’s delightful
The Allegory of Love
(1936, 1985). For English readers, the definitive scholarly edition with commentary is by Charles S. Singleton,
The Divine Comedy
(6 vols., 1970–75). The most appealing and accessible recent translations with commentary are by Dorothy Sayers in Penguin Classics (1949) and by John Ciardi in Mentor paperback (1954–1970).

For background to these chapters on heroes of the Vanguard Word, we must see how the written word was diffused and circulated, both before and after printing and the coming of movable type to the West. See my
The Discoverers
, Chapters 60–68. We must not forget that
“Littera Script Manet”
was written by Horace long before words were circulated in print. On what the printed book did and how: Lucien Febvre and Henri-Jean Martin,
The Coming of the Book
(1976); Sandra Hindman and James Douglas Farquhar,
Pen to Press
(1977); H. J. Chaytor,
From Script to Print … Medieval Vernacular Literature
(1976). And for a broader view of the role of print in Western culture:
A Short History of the Printed Word
(1970); John Carter and Percy H. Muir, eds.,
Printing and the Mind of Man
(1967), a guide to an exhibit of “The Impact of Print on Five Centuries of Western Civilization,” an invaluable compendium of facts on the first entry into print of works that have made a difference. An admirable anthology with concise biographies of authors is
The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces
(4th ed., 2 vols., 1979). And there are comparable Norton anthologies of English and American literature. For guidance into the vocabulary of literary criticism and jargon, see M. H. Abrams,
A Glossary of Literary Terms
(5th ed., 1988).

Chapter 31. Escaping the Plague
. For the context in Boccaccio’s time, see Barbara Tuchman’s engrossing
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century
(1978); William H. McNeill,
Plagues and People
(1976). And for a scholarly and readable biography: Thomas G. Bergin,
Boccaccio
(1981). Until recently the most widely circulating English translation of
The Decameron
was the stilted version of (1978)
John Payne (1928), with an introduction by Sir Walter Raleigh. G. E. McWilliam’s translation for the Penguin Classics is more colloquial. My favorite is the vigorous version by Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella (Mentor paperback, 1982), with an introduction by Thomas Bergin.