The Moon in the Greek and Roman Imagination

Myth, Literature, Science and Philosophy

Bibliographic Data

ID23182830
AuthorsKaren ní Mheallaigh (University of Exeter, corresponding author)
Year2020
Publication date2020-10-31
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueMoon in the Greek and Roman Imagination (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/9781108685726
OpenAlexW3139851153
ISBN9781108685726
Open LibraryOL34762143M
LanguageEN
Citations received4

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 (selēnoskopia), 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.

Aesthetics · Ancient Greek · Archaeology · Art · Focus (optics) · Hoax · Literature · Natural (archaeology) · Period (music) · Psychoanalysis · Relation (database) · The Imaginary · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Historical Astronomy and Related Studies · History · Marine and environmental studies · Philosophy · Psychology · civilization · Classical philology · Extraterrestrial beings in literature · Greek literature · History and criticism · Imaginary Voyages · in literature · Literature and science

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