Ruskin's handling of the topic of mythology is one of the ways in which his work expresses the central concerns of the period in which he wrote - the age of Romanticism. Nevertheless, his early writing voices a Christian mistrust of supposedly pagan mythology. Later he came to revere and use mythology and insisted that historical scholarship could never wholly uncover the meaning of myth: for him it was primarily a religious phenomenon with an unchanging spiritual message, founded on an ancient understanding of the world. Ruskin believed that myth was an instrument of teaching and this book shows how deeply his thinking and works - autobiographical, art historical, political and scientific - are pervaded by his rewriting of myth.
- ISBN10 019812872X
- ISBN13 9780198128724
- Publish Date 4 August 1988
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 5 August 2006
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Oxford University Press
- Imprint Clarendon Press
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 224
- Language English