دانلود کتاب The figure of Orpheus in antiquity and the Middle Ages

In this study I have tried to outline the ways in which writers and artists— from Hellenic antiquity through the high Middle Ages— have regarded the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice and the ways in which they have modified this legend to express certain religious, philosophical and literary beliefs of their own times.The Introduction offers a "biography" of Orpheus assembled from representative classical authors. Chapter One deals with the way in which the Orpheus legend was used by Jewish and Christian apologetic writers. Chapter Two deals with the legend of Orpheus in Antique art, most particularly as a metaphor for the soul's ascent to the heavens in funerary art and magical gems. Chapter Three deals with the legend as it was allegorically interpreted by commentators on Boethius, on Ovid, and on various ancient authors known to the Middle Ages. In the work of the medieval commentators Orpheus emerges as a figure representing reason and eloquence and Eurydice as the carnal concupiscence of man's nature. Chapter Four treats Orpheus and Eurydice as romance hero and heroine in medieval manuscript illustration and in Latin and English poetry, with special attention to the anonymous romance Sir Orfeo and to Robert Henryson's "Orpheus and Eurydice." Perhaps the most interesting finding of my study lies in the interrelatedness of art and literature during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. During the period with which I have been concerned, iconography served as a source for some of the most imaginative modifications of the Orpheus legend, as for example, the identification of Orpheus with Christ. In the transmission of the Orpheus legend the picture was not only more memorable than the written word, it also had, upon occasion, the power to change the word to conform to a visual motif.