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Literary Criticism Semiotics & Theory

Secrets of the Oracle

A History of Wisdom from Zeno to Yeats

by (author) W. David Shaw

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Dec 2009
Category
Semiotics & Theory, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442640344
    Publish Date
    Dec 2009
    List Price
    $89.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442697904
    Publish Date
    Sep 2013
    List Price
    $78
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442685307
    Publish Date
    Dec 2009
    List Price
    $78.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442697263
    Publish Date
    Dec 2009
    List Price
    $71.00

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Description

What is wisdom? Where does it come from? Where can we find it? And what does it mean in our lives? In Secrets of the Oracle, David 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.

Wisdom literature exists in two shaping forms - the aphorism, geared towards the past, and the oracle, a revolutionary impulse looking to the future. Secrets of the Oracle discusses both types of wisdom, finding them in the works of poets and philosophers from Tennyson and Zeno to Yeats and George Berkeley, from Browning and Schleiermacher to T.S. Eliot and F.H. Bradley. The book also discusses the contribution to wisdom of Jesus and the author of Ecclesiastes, of Abraham Lincoln and Norman Maclean. Part celebration of wisdom found and part lament for wisdom lost, Secrets of the Oracle is convincing in its assertion that wisdom articulates what is and offers creative visions of the future.

About the author

W. David Shaw is a professor emeritus in the Department of English at Victoria College, University of Toronto.

W. David Shaw's profile page