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| Title | : | Orpheus: The Song of Life |
| Author | : | Ann Wroe |
| Book Format | : | Hardcover |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 272 pages |
| Published | : | July 14th 2011 by Jonathan Cape |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. History. Fantasy. Mythology. Music. Poetry. Classics. Biography |
Ann Wroe
Hardcover | Pages: 272 pages Rating: 3.82 | 116 Users | 26 Reviews
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For at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian, poet and lover, his story never leaves us. He may be myth, but his lyre still sounds, entrancing everything that hears it: animals, trees, water, stones, and men.In this extraordinary work Ann Wroe goes in search of Orpheus, from the forests where he walked and the mountains where he worshipped to the artefacts, texts and philosophies built up round him. She traces the man, and the power he represents, through the myriad versions of a fantastical life: his birth in Thrace, his studies in Egypt, his voyage with the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece, his love for Eurydice and journey to Hades, and his terrible death. We see him tantalising Cicero and Plato, and breathing new music into Gluck and Monteverdi; occupying the mind of Jung and the surreal dreams of Cocteau; scandalising the Fathers of the early Church, and filling Rilke with poems like a whirlwind. He emerges as not simply another mythical figure but the force of creation itself, singing the song of light out of darkness and life out of death.
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| ISBN: | 0224091360 (ISBN13: 9780224091367) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Literary Awards: | John D. Criticos Prize (2011) |
Rating Epithetical Books Orpheus: The Song of Life
Ratings: 3.82 From 116 Users | 26 ReviewsWrite Up Epithetical Books Orpheus: The Song of Life
It's interesting how Orpheus isn't mentioned in either of the Homeric poems and yet the Romans were all about him as he appears in both Ovid's Metamorphoses and Virgil's The Aeneid. I've always loved the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. I *think* it might have been the first Greek myth I read. But if not the first it's definitely the one I borrowed the most from the library as a kid. Anywho... I read this book about Orpheus and while it was incredibly interesting, I found it was also a little dryI liked this book. The various sources even included Neil Gaiman's Orpheus, which I thought was nice.
Sumptuous.If you arrive at this book as I did from Rilkes sonnets youll appreciate the inspiration that Rilke and so many others found in Orpheus.A few of her other sources are: Aristotle, Ovid, Virgil, Gluck, Henryson, Milton, Rumi, Apollinaire, Anouilh, Cocteau, Graves, Frazer, Jung, Tagore and Yeats. She has absorbed them all but this is no dry academic text. She loves her subject and her love is a joy to read. After the loss of Eurydice she writes:... It was still true that Love controlled
This is a poetic and accessible bio-mythography* of the mysterious and enduring figure of Orpheus, which effortlessly weaves strands of his legends ancient and modern, and the varied voices of many places and cultures, in a single diaphanous skein.It is a rare conjuror who can wake the classical world and bring it to me lingering in a supermarket or crossing a field, who can make a spirit palpable in the faltering gestures of a passerby. A rare academic who can toil in the fields of research
This is a very dreamy book and not at all what I expected. Not what Im looking for.
Ann Wroe does an excellent job of weaving together the many conflicting references to Orpheus in antiquity, and interpretations by scholars, into a gorgeously written and highly readable biography.
As much as I love Orpheus, this book was painful to read.
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