Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity (Hardback)
$60.60 - Save $3.19 (5%) - RRP $63.79 Free delivery worldwide (to United States and
all these other countries) Usually dispatched within 48 hours | |Short Description for Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity How did dreaming culture evolve from Homer's time to late antiquity? What did these dreams signify? And how do we read and understand ancient dreams through modern eyes? The author takes an elusive subject and writes about it, reminding us of specificities, contexts, and changing attitudes through history.
Full description- Publisher: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
- Published: 15 June 2009
- Format: Hardback 352 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Literary Studies: Classical, Early & Medieval | Sleep & Dreams | Ancient History: To C 500 CE | Classical History / Classical Civilisation | Western Philosophy: Ancient, To C 500 | Dreams & Their Interpretation
- ISBN 13: 9780674032972 ISBN 10: 0674032977
- Sales rank: 1,085,562
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Full description for Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity
From the "Iliad" to "Aristophanes", from the gospel of "Matthew" to "Augustine", Greek and Latin texts are constellated with descriptive images of dreams. Some are formulaic, others intensely vivid. The best ancient minds - Plato, Aristotle, the physician Galen, and others - struggled to understand the meaning of dreams. With "Dreaming and Experience in Classical Antiquity" the renowned ancient historian William Harris turns his attention to oneiric matters. This cultural history of dreams in antiquity draws on both contemporary post-Freudian science and careful critiques of the ancient texts. Harris traces the history of characteristic forms of dream-description and relates them both to the ancient experience of dreaming and to literary and religious imperatives. He analyzes the nuances of Greek and Roman belief in the truth-telling potential of dreams, and in a final chapter offers an assessment of ancient attempts to understand dreams naturalistically. How did dreaming culture evolve from Homer's time to late antiquity? What did these dreams signify? And how do we read and understand ancient dreams through modern eyes? Harris takes an elusive subject and writes about it with rigor and precision, reminding us of specificities, contexts, and changing attitudes through history.
