Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography

Shattuck, Roger

ISBN 10: 0156005514 / ISBN 13: 9780156005517

Published by Harvest Book/Harcourt Brace & Company, Publishers, 1997

About this Item

First Harvest Edition. Trade Paperback in Near Fine Condition. A landmark exploration of the dark side of human ingenuity and imagination and an analysis of the history of Western culture. 369 pages, indexed, with bibliography. 5.25 x 8 inches. 1997, Harvest Book/Harcourt Brace & Company, Publishers, USA. Seller Inventory # 022712

Bibliographic Details

Title: Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to ...

Publisher: Harvest Book/Harcourt Brace & Company, Publishers

Publication Date: 1997

Binding: Paperback

Condition: Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

Edition: First Thus.

About this title

Synopsis:

In his “best achievement to date” (Harold Bloom), National Book Award- winner Roger Shattuck gives us a “deeply learned, highly intelligent, and beautifully written” (New York Times) study of human curiosity versus the taboo, from Adam and Eve to the Marquis de Sade to biotechnology research. Index.

Review:

An intellectual tour-de-force, Forbidden Knowledge is a study of the ethics of literary and scientific inquiry. Shattuck first approaches his subject indirectly, conducting an engaging tour of Western literature: Adam and Eve, Prometheus, Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. He then uses these tales to address the moral questions raised by mankind's tendency to search for dangerous knowledge. He contrasts J. Robert Oppenheimer's acceptance of guilt for the atomic bombings with Edward Teller's dismissal of the same. In his own field of literary criticism he argues against the neutral analysis of immoral works as "pure literature," illustrating his point with a critique of the Marquis de Sade. Forbidden Knowledge is a stimulating and forceful intellectual argument against moral relativism, as well as a practical approach to difficult ethical problems, from genetic engineering to pornography.