Truth or death : the quest for immortality in the western narrative tradition
"In the tradition of James Frazer, Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, Thierry Hentsch retells, with new urgency and a keen critical eye, "the story of the West" that shapes our perception of the world. Yet, "the story of the West" does not exist. Only a reading of its most seminal texts - from Ulysses to Hamlet, from the Torah to the Gospels, from Plato to Descartes - can bring it alive." "His tale turns on a startling discovery: The Christian message of immortality is conditional. To overcome death - the touchstone of the human condition - the believer must accept the Truth of salvation. Western civilization, by replacing God with technoscience, offers the universal promise that salvation may now be gained on earth. Yet, as a condition, it would impose its own absolute morality on the world. Truth or Death: the Biblical injunction is ours as well."--Jacket
document
412 pages ; 23 cm
9780889225091, 0889225095
55681532
Ch. 1. Ulysses, or the happiness of mortals
Ch. 2. The shield of Aeneas
Ch. 3. Gilgamesh : the human condition
Ch. 4. The birth of the world and the genesis of knowledge
Ch. 5. Knowledge as inner drama
Ch. 6. Knowledge of eros
Ch. 7. The paths of knowledge
Ch. 8. Reading the gospel
Ch. 9. The sin of ignorance
Ch. 10. The sublimation of heroism
Ch. 11. The transfer of heroism
Ch. 12. The heroism of the poet
Ch. 13. The magic lantern
Ch. 14. A singular madness
Ch. 15. The ghost of truth
Ch. 16. The heroism of reason
Translation of: Raconter et mourir