Birth of the Symbol: Ancient Readers at the Limits of Their Texts

by Peter T. Struck

Nearly all of us have studied poetry and been taught to look for the symbolic as well as literal meaning of the text. Is this the way the ancients saw poetry? In Birth of the Symbol , Peter Struck explores the ancient Greek literary critics and theorists who invented the idea of the poetic "symbol."


The book notes that Aristotle and his followers did not discuss the use of poetic symbolism. Rather, a different group of Greek thinkers--the allegorists--were the first to develop the notion. Struck extensively revisits the work of the great allegorists, which has been underappreciated. He links their interest in symbolism to the importance of divination and magic in ancient times, and he demonstrates how important symbolism became when they thought about religion and philosophy. "They see the whole of great poetic language as deeply figurative," he writes, "with the potential always, even in the most mundane details, to be freighted with hidden messages."



Birth of the Symbol offers a new understanding of the role of poetry in the life of ideas in ancient Greece. Moreover, it demonstrates a connection between the way we understand poetry and the way it was understood by important thinkers in ancient times.

Genres: History, Poetry, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Theory

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Struck's book is absolutely fascinating as a survey of the mystical side of ancient literary criticism. It's the rare work of indispensable Classics scholarship that couldn't have been written before Theory hit, yet it's extremely readable. Usually the first sentence of the acknowledgments ("This book began as a dissertation at the University of Chicago") would signal a heavy slog. The ideas here are genuinely difficult in many cases, but the explanations are extremely lucid.

I've long been inclined to see rhetoric and hermeneutics as evil twins. The side of me that looks at language that way was at play all the way through this book. Struck is deeply concerned with what happens when you look at literary texts less as trying to do something to you, and more as trying to tell you something. If that's an interest for you at all, this book is a must-read.

[Cody Barnhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a pleasure to read. Compelling, articulate, and thought-provoking, it has the makings of a classics classic.

[Ted Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me reading this work is a tough stretch. I think I basically understand it though I am not qualified at all to appraise it. Finding "the surplus of meaning" in some writing or other symbol is, of course, a common notion but Professor Struck takes a long reading of over a 1000 years of ancient writing to open windows to let in light and air. He makes general study of language and interpretation always "at a high theoretical level" (from the blurb by Walter Burkett). This expansion of a doctoral dissertation is a pleasant challenge to my reading and interpretation (of this work).