A book that looks interesting and perhaps relevant

I'll be curious to see how Esotericism and the Academy, due in 2012, develops this fascinating topic:

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Esotericism and the Academy

Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture

• Wouter J. Hanegraaff, University of Amsterdam

• Hardback

• ISBN: 9780521196215

• 4 tables

• Dimensions: 228 x 152 mm

• Not yet published - available from January 2012
• 
  
• Academics tend to look on 'esoteric', 'occult' or 'magical' beliefs with contempt, but are usually ignorant about the religious and philosophical traditions to which these terms refer, or their relevance to intellectual history. Wouter Hanegraaff tells the neglected story of how intellectuals since the Renaissance have tried to come to terms with a cluster of 'pagan' ideas from late antiquity that challenged the foundations of biblical religion and Greek rationality. Expelled from the academy on the basis of Protestant and Enlightenment polemics, these traditions have come to be perceived as the Other by which academics define their identity to the present day. Hanegraaff grounds his discussion in a meticulous study of primary and secondary sources, taking the reader on an exciting intellectual voyage from the fifteenth century to the present day and asking what implications the forgotten history of exclusion has for established textbook narratives of religion, philosophy and science.Table of Contents

Introduction: hic sunt dracones
1. The history of truth: recovering ancient wisdom
2. The history of error: exorcizing Paganism
3. The error of history: imagining the Occult
4. The truth of history: entering the Academy
Conclusions: restoring memory.

Early Days of Printed Matter

Mussy sends along this review by Robert Pinsky of The Book in the Renaissance. A snippet:

For a time, civil and religious authorities controlled the immense scale of explosive information and misinformation. When the Protestant Henry of Navarre ascended to the French throne in 1589, the news was available to English readers in “at least 40 pamphlets,” while his 1594 conversion to Roman Catholicism “was greeted with deafening silence in London.” Gradually, however, centralized control was overwhelmed by the reckless abundance of the tumultuous, street-oriented press. Petty gossip, ignorant screeds, inflammatory pamphlets and religious tracts flowed and overflowed.

The Satyr in the corner

NPR had an interesting story recently about Botticelli's painting, Venus and Mars. Apparently no scholar had noticed until now that in the lower right corner, next to the little horned satyr, is a plant known to possess hallucinogenic powers.

This opened a new angle of interpretive interest in the painting, about which we can read more here. The point of interest just now is the presence of the satyr. Horace will also bring satyrs into the Ars Poetica more than once, and of course made his poetic reputation first as a writer of satires. While "satire" does not derive directly from the Greek word for satyr, Σάτυρος, the literary use of the term seems to have been influenced by it.


From Wikipedia:

The satyrs' chief was Silenus, a minor deity associated (like Hermes and Priapus) with fertility. These characters can be found in the only remaining satyr play Cyclops by Euripedes and the fragments of Sophocles' The Tracking Satyrs (Ichneutae). The satyr play was a lighthearted follow-up attached to the end of each trilogy of tragedies in Athenian festivals honoring Dionysus. These plays would take a lighthearted approach to the heavier subject matter of the tragedies in the series, featuring heroes speaking in tragic iambic verse and taking their situation seriously as to the flippant, irreverent and obscene remarks and antics of the satyrs. The groundbreaking tragic playwright Aeschylus is said to have been especially loved for his satyr plays, but none of them have survived.


More here.

A new book

Readers of this blog might find a new book of interest -- The Book of Firsts: 150 World-Changing People and Events from Caesar Augustus to the Internet, by Peter D'Epiro.

The book employs the brief essay form to explore a far-ranging look at moments of firstness across the past 20 centuries: the first world-class Chinese poet, the first philosopher king, the first caliph, the first modern political scientist -- all memorable characters, set into their historical moments with style, vividness, and genuine learning, the fruits of a curious mind. Take, for example, Ivan the Terrible -- the essay the first czar offers an unforgettably surreal portrait of the Russian power structure of the mid-16th century.

(Disclaimer: I wrote several essays for the book -- learned much in the process, and had great fun with my subjects, ranging from Medieval and Renaissance figures (Masaccio, Alberti, Brunelleschi etc.) to Freud and the Internet.)

Pete's previous book, Sprezzatura, 50 Ways Italian Genius Shaped the World was well received -- in fact, it's been consistently featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's bookstore for the past several years.

Reading through The Book of Firsts' 150 essays, I kept thinking how I wished I'd had such a book in college, either as a student taking history and lit, or as an instructor, to provide some palpable historical flavor. D'Epiro's essays are meticulous, focused, witty and beautifully written, and he gathered a good group of folks to contribute. Firsts just came out on the Kindle, but the paperback is available at pre-publication prices for a little while longer.

A few pointers to Marvell:

Brief bios here, here, here, and here, complete older bio here.

Timeline

A nice collection of his poems

More

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658. He was succeeded as Lord Protector by his son Richard, but in 1660 the monarchy was restored to Charles II. Marvell eventually came to write several long and bitterly satirical verses against the corruption of the court. Although they circulated in manuscript form, and some found anonymous publication in print, they were too politically sensitive and thus dangerous to be published under his name until well after his death. He avoided punishment for his own cooperation with republicanism, while he helped convince the government of Charles II not to execute John Milton for his antimonarchical writings and revolutionary activities. The closeness of the relationship between the two former office mates is indicated by the fact that Marvell contributed an eloquent prefatory poem to the second edition of Milton's famous epic Paradise Lost. According to a biographer:

“

Skilled in the arts of self-preservation, he was not a toady.[9]

”

Marvell's remains, like those of Milton, Blake, and Shakespeare, will not be found in Westminster Abbey. His grave may be found in St. Giles in the Fields, London.