Secrets of the Oracle : A History of Wisdom from Zeno to Yeats.

Intro -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- PART ONE: AN OWL FOR APOLLO: WISDOM AND THE POETS -- 1 Descent of the Owl: Philosophy among the Poets -- 2 Tennyson and Zeno: Three Infinities -- 3 How Poets Die to Time: The Sublime Oracle -- 4 Making Peace with Time: The Beautiful Oracle -- 5 The Ruins of Time: The Grotesque Oracle -- PART TWO: HOMAGE TO WISDOM: FROM DELPHI TO ZEN -- 6 Wisdom and the Logos: John's Gospel to Four Quartets -- 7 Gnostic Wisdom: Parable and Koan -- 8 Paradox and Oracle: Crucible versus Mirror -- 9 Copy-Speech and Counter-Love: Wordsworth and Frost -- 10 'A River Runs through It' and Joyce's 'The Dead' -- PART THREE: OWLS, BULLS, AND SERPENTS: WISDOM OR GUILE? -- 11 The Wise Owl: George Eliot's Arrested Wit -- 12 The Serpent of Irony: Wisdom or Guile? -- 13 Groucho Marx to Bernard Shaw: The Irish Bull -- 14 Oracles of Wit: Oscar Wilde and Northrop Frye -- PART FOUR: WISDOM AT GETTYSBURG: REWRITING THE ORACLES -- 15 From Delphi to Gettysburg: Changing the Covenant -- 16 Coleridge and Huxley: Experiment or Decree? -- 17 Evolving Oracles: Newman, Browning, and Shakespeare -- 18 An Underground Oracle: 'Look in Your Heart and Write' -- Works Cited -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- T -- Z.

What is wisdom? Where does it come from? Where can we find it? And what does it mean in our lives?Shaw explores these questions by turning to the works of wisdom writers, whose words retain their meaning and transformative power even centuries after they were written.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.