The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (138 page)

A good introduction to the difficulty mankind has experienced in coming to the idea of novelty is any one of the lucid works of Mircea Eliade, beginning with his brief
Cosmos and History: The Myth of Eternal Return
(1959), then
Myth and Reality
(1968), or
Patterns in Comparative Religion
(1972), explored in more detail in his
History of Religious Ideas
(3 vols., 1978–85). For concise essays on the contrasts of Western and Eastern cosmologies, we are fortunate in having Hajime Nakamura’s
Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples
(1964) and his
Comparative History of Ideas
(2d ed., 1986). Cyclical thinking has also charmed the West—from Plato to Vico, Hegel, and Toynbee—and seemed to provide a refuge from the complexity of history. Helpful introductions are Grace E. Cairns,
Philosophies of History
(1962), and G. W. Trompi,
The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western Thought
(1979).

The vast literature of Eastern religions and alternatives to religion can overwhelm the Western reader. An accessible path is the Introduction to Oriental Civilizations series (William Theodore de Bary, ed., Columbia University Press, 1958–64), with its
Sources of Indian Traditions
(1958) and companion volumes on the Chinese and the Japanese traditions. And for a collection of lively scholarly essays:
Mythologies of the Ancient World
(Samuel Noah Kramer, ed., 1961). There is no better reference guide than the Asia Society’s readable and scholarly
Encyclopedia of Asian History
(Ainslie T. Embree, ed., 4 vols., 1987) with bibliographies.

Chapter 1.
The Dazzled Vision of the Hindus
. We are lucky to have A. L. Basham’s readable
The Wonder That was India
(1954; 1971) and illuminating brief works: Diana L. Eck,
Darsan, Seeing the
Divine Image in India
(1981) and
Banaras, City of Light
(1982); S. Radhakrishnan,
The Hindu View of Life
(1957). For a visual sample of the awesome multiplicity of roles of Hindu gods, see Stella Kramrisch,
Manifestations of Shiva
(1981), the catalog of a brilliant exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Where the translator is not indicated in the text, the source is: de Bary (ed.),
Sources of Indian Tradition
.

Chapter 2.
The Indifference of Confucius
. For a straight path to Confucius, see Arthur Waley’s translation of
The Analects of Confucius
(1938) and his
Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China
(1956). On Confucius and Confucianism, Herrlee G. Creel offers models of scholarly liveliness in
Confucius and the Chinese Way
(1960) and
What Is Taoism?
, (1970), besides his classic
The Birth of China
(1964). Especially helpful: C. P. Fitzgerald,
China: A Short Cultural History
(4th ed., 1976); L. Carrington Goodrich,
A Short History of the Chinese People
(4th ed., 1958); Herbert G. Giles,
A History of Chinese Literature
(n.d.), and Frederick W. Mote,
Intellectual Foundations of China
(2d ed., 1989). More specialized are Derk Bodde,
Essays on Chinese Civilization
(1981); Benjamin I. Schwarz,
The World of Thought in Ancient China
(1985); Chang Chung-yuan,
Creativity and Taoism: A Study of Chinese Philosophy, Art and Poetry
(1975); On Chinese views of nature, see Joseph Needham’s brilliant and succinct
Within the Four Seas, the Dialogue of East and West
(1979). No one should miss Kenneth Clark’s
Landscape into Art
(1949; 1976). Where the translator is not indicated in the text, the source is: de Bary (ed.),
Sources of Chinese Tradition
(2 vols., 1960), or Shigeru Nakayama and Nathan Sivin (eds.),
Chinese Science
(1973).

Chapter 3. The Silence of the Buddha
. A convenient access to the Scriptures is Edward Conze,
Buddhist Scriptures
(Penguin Books, 1973), illuminated by his
Buddhism
(1953) and
Buddhist Meditation
(1956), supplemented by
Sacred Books of the Buddhists
(T. W. Rhys Davids, ed., 4 vols., 1910–21). Where the translator is not indicated in the text, the source is: de Bary (ed.),
Sources of Indian Tradition
(1958).

Chapter 4. The Homeric Scriptures of the Greeks
. While Homer provides a delightful touchstone of ancient Greek thought, the literature about Homer is a microcosm of Western literary culture. For a spirited introduction M. I. Finley has given us
The Ancient Greeks
(1963),
The World of Odysseus
(2d ed., 1977), and
The Greek Historians
(1959). A lively path into Greek thinking about origins is W.K.C. Guthrie,
In the Beginning
(1965), broadened by his
The Greeks and Their Gods
(1955), and documented by his
History of Greek Philosophy
(2 vols., 1962–65). For the work of Milman Parry, see a detailed account by a brilliant disciple who pursued the implications and applications of Parry’s techniques: Albert B. Lord,
The Singer of Tales
(1960); and Adam Parry, ed.,
The Making of Homeric Verse
(1971).

To place Homer in context, see G. S. Kirk,
Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures
(1973),
Homeland the Oral Tradition
(1976),
Homer and the Epic
(1979); C. M. Bowra’s eloquent
The Greek Experience
(1957),
Homer
(1972); G. Lowes Dickinson,
The Greek View of Life
(1958); W. H. Auden, ed.,
The Portable Greek Reader
(1955). For reference, see A.J.B. Wace and F. H. Stubbings, eds.,
A Companion to Homer
(1962). We glimpse the iridescence of Homer in the English translations from Chapman (1611; 1614–15) to Hobbes, Dryden, and Pope and those in our century: the verse of Robert Fitzgerald (1961), Richmond Lattimore (1965–67), and Robert Fagles (1990), and the prose translations of E. V. Rieu (the first Penguin Classic, 1946) and I. A. Richards (1950). Matthew Arnold’s lectures
On Translating Homer
(1861) defines “the grand style” and shows us the apotheosis of “the Poet.” For Hesiod’s
Works and Days
and his
Theogony
, see the translation by Apostolos N. Athanassakis (1983), to compare with that by Richmond Lattimore (1959).

The history of theology, written mostly for theologians and believers, does not offer us easy paths of entry. But we are fortunate in having
The Encyclopedia of Religion
(Mircea Eliade, ed., 16 vols., 1987), which offers us succinct and readable scholarly essays. And see William Foxwell Albright,
“From the Stone Age to Christianity,” in
Monotheism and Historical Process
(1957). Jaroslav Pelikan’s magisterial survey of the history of Christian theology has the authentic flavor of personal conviction:
The Christian Tradition
(5 vols., 1971–89). Or more succinctly
The Melody of Theology
(1988), and
Jesus Through the Centuries
(1985). His
Mystery of Continuity
(1986) introduces us to the amplitude of Saint Augustine’s thought and influence. A convenient reference work is
Harper’s Bible Dictionary
(8th ed., 1973).

Chapter 5.
The Intimate God of Moses
. I am much indebted to Martin Buber’s
Moses
(1946) and his I
and Thou
, (1937), which makes the Mosaic experience a basis for his version of Judaism. Sigmund Freud, too, found his own meanings in
Moses and Monotheism
(1939), recently explained as an aspect of his own personal quest, in Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi,
Freud’s Moses
(1991). For Moses’ place in the history of theology, see William F. Albright,
From the Stone Age to Christianity
(2d. ed., 1957), and George Foot Moore,
Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era
(2 vols., 1946). Of extraordinary interest is Josiah Royce’s article “Monotheism” in Hastings,
Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics
, Vol. 8, pp. 817ff., which reminds us of the many varieties of belief traveling under that name.

Chapter 6. The Birth of Theology
. The literary background of the intriguing Philo is brightened by Edward A. Parsons,
The Alexandrian Library: The Glory of the Hellenic World
(1952), and F. E. Peters,
The Harvest of Hellenism … the Near East from Alexander the Great to the Triumph of Christianity
(1970). The main avenue to him is Erwin R. Goodenough,
Introduction to Philo Judaeus
(2d ed., 1963), followed by Harry A. Wolfson’s comprehensive
Philo, Foundations of Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
(2 vols., 1947).

Chapter 7.
The Innovative God of Saint Augustine
. Saint Augustine of Hippo remains one of the most versatile and challenging thinkers in Western history. The best introduction to his thought is Jaroslav Pelikan,
The Mystery of Continuity: Time and History, Memory and Eternity in … Saint Augustine
(1986) and
The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph of the Church
(1987). For biography, see Peter Brown’s readable
Augustine of Hippo
(1967) and Homes F. Dudden,
The Life and Times of St. Ambrose
(2 vols., 1935). For the wider background, see: Charles N. Cochrane’s brilliant
Christianity and Classical Culture
(1944); Ludwig Edelstein,
The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity
(1967); Robert Nisbet,
History of the Idea of Progress
(1980). Saint Augustine’s
Confessions
are in popular English translations by E. B. Pusey (1930) and F. J. Sheed (1943).
The City of God
is in the Everyman Library (2 vols., 1945–47) and in the Modern Library, trans. Marcus Dods, with an introduction by Thomas Merton. Both with a selection of theological writings are in
Great Books of the Western World
, Vol. 18 (1952).

Chapter 8.
The Uncreated Koran
. The strangeness of the idea of the uncreated Koran to those raised in the Judeo-Christian tradition is a clue to the effort required of the English reader to grasp the meanings of Islam. The best introduction in English to the problem of interpreting the Koran is
Bell’s Introduction to the Qur’an
(revised by W. Montgomery Watt, 1970). For the history of interpretation and the wider context, see the articles “Kalam” and “Qur’an” in
The Encyclopedia of Religion;
Gustave von Grunebaum,
Medieval Islam
(2d ed., 1971); F. E. Peters,
Allah’s Commonwealth: a History of Islam in the Near East, 600–1100
(1973); Albert Hourani,
A History of the Arab Peoples
(1991), especially the brilliant essay in Chapter 4, “The Articulations of Islam,” and
The Encyclopaedia of Islam
(1960–). The special role of language and the word in Islam is revealed in the distinctive study of Kalam surveyed in Harry A. Wolfson,
The Philosophy of the Kalam
(1976). This has given Islam a linguistic cultural role quite different from that in Christianity. While the sacred Scriptures in Western Christendom have had a leading role in spreading and defining vernaculars (German, French, English), Islam itself has been a powerful agent for the spread of Arabic. Strictly speaking, “translation” of the Koran is not possible and not permissible—which explains why M. M. Pickthall
can give us only
The Meaning of the Glorious Koran
(“An Explanatory Translation,” 1930; Mentor Paperback, 1959). The version generally accepted by Muslims in the English-language world,
The Holy Qur’an, Text, Translation and Commentary
, by A. Yusuf Ali (3d ed., 1946), offers the Arabic and the English in parallel columns.

In this century, the history of architecture has invited bold and imaginative interpreters, who carry us out from the buildings we see. The most far-ranging and cosmopolitan of these is the Swiss Sigfried Giedion, who has made contemporary art and technology his point of departure. Start with his
Space, Time and Architecture, the growth of a new tradition
, (1949), then
Mechanization Takes Command
(1948). Especially relevant for this Part of the book are
The Eternal Present: The Beginnings of Art
(1962) and
The Beginnings of Architecture
(1981). Architecture is the starting point also for Lewis Mumford’s reflections on American and other civilizations, from his
Sticks and Stones
(1924) to
The City in History
(1961) and
Roots of Contemporary Architecture
(1972). A concise survey is Nikolaus Pevsner,
An Outline of European Architecture
(new ed., 1948).
The Architecture Book
(1976), by Norval White, is an illustrated glossary of architectural terms. A brilliant array of scholars offer well-illustrated studies of periods in the volumes of
The Pelican History of Art
, listed under topics below. For essays on the relation between architecture and the sophisticated currents of thought, see Rudolf Wittkower,
Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism
(1973); Geoffrey Scott,
The Architecture of Humanism
(1974); Heinrich Wolfflin,
Principles of Art History
(1932).

Chapter 9. The Mystery of Megaliths
. Few simple monuments have tantalized historians of science and art more than Stonehenge. A delightful short path into the doubts and debates is Glyn Daniel’s
Megaliths in History
(1972). These can be further explored in R.J.C. Atkinson’s conjectural reconstruction in
Stonehenge
(1960); in Gerald Hawkins,
Stonehenge Decoded
(1966) and
Beyond Stonehenge
0973). An excellent introduction to the possible technology of constructing Stonehenge is by R.H.G. Thomson in Charles Singer and others, eds.,
A History of Technology
(5 vols., 1967), at Vol. 1, pp. 490ff. For modern modes of dating, including dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating: Colin Renfrew,
Before Civilization: The Radiocarbon Revolution and Prehistoric Europe
(1973). For the wider vistas, see Glyn Daniel,
The Idea of Prehistory
(1971); and the stimulating essays of Grahame Clark, especially
Prehistoric England
(1974). Prehistory, because of the fragmentary nature of the evidence, has been a happy hunting ground for dogmatic historians. One of the most stimulating and influential of these is the Australian V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957), whose
Dawn of European Civilization
(1925, 6th ed., 1967) and
What Happened in History
(1946), a Penguin book, open scores of new questions.