The Revelation of Imagination: From Homer and the Bible through Virgil and Augustine to Dante - Softcover

Franke, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081013182X ISBN 13: 9780810131828

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2015

Synopsis

In The Revelation of Imagination, William Franke attempts to focus on what is enduring and perennial rather than on what is accommodated to the agenda of the moment. Franke's book offers re-actualized readings of representative texts from the Bible, Homer, and Virgil to Augustine and Dante. The selections are linked together in such a way as to propose a general interpretation of knowledge. They emphasize, moreover, a way of articulating the connection of humanities knowledge with what may, in various senses, be called divine revelation. This includes the sort of inspiration to which poets since Homer have typically laid claim, as well as that proper to the biblical tradition of revealed religion. The Revelation of Imagination invigorates the ongoing discussion about the value of humanities as a source of enduring knowledge.
 

About this title

About the Author

WILLIAM FRANKE is a professor of comparative literature and religious studies at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee and a professor of philosophy and religions at the University of Macao in China.

Review

". . . a quite dazzling defense of poetry as central to human knowledge, by way of phenomenological considerations of the act of knowing. . . . At a moment in which the religious tradition and the secularization of culture seem to have nothing to say to each other-a catastrophic loss for both sides-Franke's development of the high theme of prophecy in all its meanings -- and the role of the prophetic in secularization, and of the secular in prophecy! -- in the most classic Western works is sorely needed-I am tempted to say, is itself prophetic."    -- Bainard Cowan, Professor of English, Cowan Chair in Literature, University of Dallas

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 081013182X
• ISBN 13: 9780810131828
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 424