The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination
Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy
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The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination
Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy
About This Book
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. ní 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 (sel?noskopia), 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.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-title
- Series information
- Title page
- Copyright information
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations, Text References and Translations
- Part I The Moon in the Mythic Imagination
- Part II The Moon in the Scientific Imagination
- Part III The Moon in the Fantastic Imagination
- Envoi: The Legacy of Ancient Selenography
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index Locorum