Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion (Greek Culture in the Roman World) - Softcover

Platt, Verity

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1316619192 ISBN 13: 9781316619193

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2016

Synopsis

This is the first history of epiphany as both a phenomenon and as a cultural discourse within the Graeco-Roman world, exploring divine manifestations and their representations, in visual terms as well as in literary, historical and epigraphic accounts. Verity Platt sets the cultural analysis of epiphany within a historical framework that explores its development from the archaic period into the Roman empire. In particular, a surprisingly large number of the images that have survived from antiquity are not only religious, but epiphanically charged. Verity Platt argues that the enduring potential for divine incursions into mortal experience provides a structure of cognitive reliability that supports both ancient religion and mythology. At the same time, Graeco-Roman culture exhibits a sophisticated awareness of the difficulties of the apprehension of deity, the representation of divine presence, and the potential for the manmade sign to lead the worshipper back to an unmediated epiphanic encounter.

About this title

Book Description:

This book explores divine manifestations and their representations not only in art, but also in literature, histories and inscriptions. The cultural analysis of epiphany is set within a historical framework that examines its development from the archaic period through the Hellenistic world and into the Roman Empire.

About the Author:

Verity Platt is Associate Professor in the Departments of Classics and Art History at Cornell University, New York, having previously taught at the University of Exeter and the University of Chicago. Her research interests include attitudes to the sacred image in antiquity, ancient theories of representation, the relationship between image and text, and Roman wall-painting and funerary art. This is her first book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1316619192
• ISBN 13: 9781316619193
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 502