00000cam a22000004i 4500 UP-1685594773862036130 Buklod 20240322060440.0 g||| | || || ta 240322s1996 nyua rb |||1 u|eng d 0312146027 (pbk.) (iLib)UPBAG-00021736702 DLC BAG rda eng PN 56 K64 S53 1996 Shattuck, Roger 1923-2005 author. Forbidden knowledge from Prometheus to pornography Roger Shattuck. New York, N.Y. St. Martin's Press 1996. xiii, 369 pages illustrations 24 cm text rdacontent unmediated rdamedia volume rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references (pages [349]-358) and index. Part one. Literary narratives -- Chapter I: The far side of curiosity -- Presumption: prometheus and after -- From taboo to science -- Skepticism, Agnosticism, Ignorabimus -- "Lust of the soul" -- Chapter II: Milton in the garden of Eden -- Resistance to Adam and Eve -- Milton's version -- "Of knowledge within bounds..." -- The downward path to wisdom -- Chapter III: Faust and Frankenstein -- The Faust myth -- Two conflicting versions -- Scenes from Faust -- Scenes from Frankenstein -- Related stories -- Faustian man: the principle of excess -- Chapter IV: The pleasures of abstinence: mme de lafayettee and Emily Dickinson -- Asceticism in La Princesse de Cleves -- Aestheticism in Emily Dickinson -- An epicurean at "The Banquet of Abstemiousness" -- Chapter V: Guilt, justice and empathy in Melville and Camus -- Billy Budd: realist allegory -- The stranger: an inside narrative -- Comparing two specimens -- Understanding, blaming, forgiving pardoning -- Knowledge as interference -- Forbiddenn knowledge and open knowledge -- The consequences of open knowledge -- Part two. Case histories -- Chapter VI: Knowledge exploding science and technology -- The bomb and the genome -- The siren song: pure and applied science -- Limits on scientific inquiry: five cases -- The condition of ambivalence -- Chapter VII: The divine marquis -- The sade case -- Rehabilitating a prophet -- The moors murders case -- Ted Bundy's sermon -- A closer walk with sade -- "Must we burn sade?" -- Truth in labeling -- Chapter VIII: The sphinx and the unicorn -- What we ought not to know: the institutions of science and art -- The veil of ignorance and the flame of experience -- Last tales. Forbidden Knowledge boldly traces the tragic arc of Western literature and culture as it explores the notion of "forbidden knowledge," from the sexual innocence of Adam and Eve to the awe-inspiring discoveries of modern scientists who have created the atomic bomb and recombinant DNA. The result is a dire portrait of human presumption and of a culture that has abandoned all limits in the quest for knowledge and experience. The harrowing imagery that Shattuck presents is matched only by his faith that we can understand our grievous loss of innocence by reexamining our greatest myths and stories of the last two thousand years. In lively, lucid prose Shattuck explores our uncertain fate through such myths as that of Prometheus and a wide range of literary works, including Milton's Paradise Lost, the writings of the Marquis de Sade, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Melville's Billy Budd, and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Parents and teachers should be aware that Chapter VII does not make appropriate reading for children and minors. In this seminal work, Shattuck breaks new ground in opening up a crucial subject never before accorded this full-scale treatment. Forbidden Knowledge impels us to a renewed effort to think judiciously about morality and the sacred during a decade of radical skepticism. Forbidden Knowledge represents the capstone of Roger Shattuck's career as one of America's most original and gifted thinkers. Knowledge, Theory of, in literature. Sex in literature. Literature and morals. FO UPBAG UPBAG-MAIN PN 56 K64 S53 1996 Book