In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans’s excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth—pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic—seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle.
Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism.
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Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism
In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans’s excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth—pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic—seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle.
Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism.
In the spring of 1900, British archaeologist Arthur Evans began to excavate the palace of Knossos on Crete, bringing ancient Greek legends to life just as a new century dawned amid far-reaching questions about human history, art, and culture. With Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism, Cathy Gere relates the fascinating story of Evans’s excavation and its long-term effects on Western culture. After the World War I left the Enlightenment dream in tatters, the lost paradise that Evans offered in the concrete labyrinth—pacifist and matriarchal, pagan and cosmic—seemed to offer a new way forward for writers, artists, and thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Graves, and Hilda Doolittle.
Assembling a brilliant, talented, and eccentric cast at a moment of tremendous intellectual vitality and wrenching change, Cathy Gere paints an unforgettable portrait of the age of concrete and the birth of modernism.
Cathy Gere is assistant professor at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of The Tomb of Agamemnon.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements Introduction
I. The Birth of Tragedy, 1822-1897 An Archaeology of Heroes A Prophecy of Tragedy What Ariadne Is
II. Stand Up Tragedy, 1851-1899 The Dry Smell of Time Eastern Questions The Road to the Labyrinth Greek Defeat Reconstructing the Nation
III. Ariadne's Lament Ariadne's Throne The Great Cretan Mother Ariadne's Dancing Floor The Making of a Goddess The Villa Ariadne Cretan Victory Ariadne in Chirico City
IV. The Concrete Labyrinth, 1914-1935 The Throne Room Complex Captain of the Blacks Court Ladies Priest-King and Cowgirls Lost Boys The Lady of Sports The Magic Ring The Psyche Element Little Souls
V. Psyche's Labyrinth, 1919-1949 Mythical Method The Decline of Crete Achilles' Shield Freudian Archaeology Psyche's Muse Crete on the Couch The Battle of Crete
VI. The Rebirth of Comedy, 1942-1949 Psyche Reborn Paradise before Eve Psyche Rewritten The Consort New Crete
VII. The Birth of Farce, 1950-2000 Romantic Revivals The White Goddess Black Athena The Road Back to War