Though Shakespeare fans may feel defensive, Edmundson delivers a welcome championing of humanistic ways of thinking and...
What happens in the rush to gain the world? We lose our souls, of course—and, Edmundson (English/Univ. of Virginia; Why Football Matters, 2014, etc.) adds, our ideals to boot.
“The profound stories about heroes and saints are passing from our minds,” writes the author on the first page. They’re passing from our minds because we are so occupied with making money, that most realistic of endeavors, that we have forgotten even the barest outlines of how to be idealistic. If this seems a grumpy-old-man jeremiad, Edmundson avoids get-off-my-lawn, Harold Bloom–ian impulses by almost immediately settling on a most unlikely culprit: namely, William Shakespeare, whom he credits for putting our minds onto the matters of the bourgeois age so thoroughly that he finds, and we find, “little use for chivalry and the culture of heroic honor.” Other players in Edmundson’s drama of the great states of Self and Soul include Freud, Plato, Blake, Tolstoy, Buddha, Jesus, and Donne, to say nothing of Frye and Pound. In short, it’s the usual who’s who of the Humanities 101 of yore, though that course has now given way to less heady surveys. Edmundson identifies three central virtues: courage, compassion, and contemplation. Each has found numerous interpretations; the author, for example, contrasts Achilles and Hector in the Homeric poems, the former as an example of self-interest, the latter as one of self-sacrifice, each addressing the matter of courage in different ways. Edmundson’s essays are smart and to the point, and there are some very good turns, as when he lists all the positive things that come from a life devoted to contemplating the ideal. A big-screen TV is not among them, but, he counsels by way of consolation, “having freed yourself, you will make others free.”
Though Shakespeare fans may feel defensive, Edmundson delivers a welcome championing of humanistic ways of thinking and living.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-674-08820-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harvard Univ.
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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