Ganymede or the cupbearer. Rapture, rapture and poetic intoxication.
PUPSorbonne| N° d'inventaire | 11801 |
| Format | 15 x 21 |
| Détails | 295 p., B/W ill., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2008 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782840160106 |
"I will cast upon the world the clear gaze lent by the eagle to Ganymede," wrote Jean Genet in The Thief's Journal. Enigmatic and silent, snatched from the earth by Jupiter's eagle, the young Trojan became the cupbearer of the gods, immortalized in the constellation of Aquarius. Before contemporary criticism made him an emblem of homosexuality, Ganymede inspired both the figurative arts (Botticelli, Correggio, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Flatters, Thorvaldsen, Pallez, Turcan...) and, since the Homeric and Ovidian episodes, a rich literature: we find him in particular in the work of Dante, Géngora, Du Bellay, in the theater of Marlowe and Shakespeare, in the Romantic age in Goethe's poem which became lieder by Schubert and Wolf, in the poetry of Hölderlin, Lamartine and Musset, in the following century in the works of Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Forster, Thomas Mann... Ganymede illustrates the beauty of the male body and its eroticism, but also an idea of eternal youth; his abduction can be an image of the sublime, and, through his function as divine cupbearer, he embodies a certain conception of poetic inspiration and enthusiasm, a counterpart of which can be found in Arabic and Persian poetry. The studies brought together here aim, from a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective, to discover the complexity and the stakes of this surprisingly modern myth.
"I will cast upon the world the clear gaze lent by the eagle to Ganymede," wrote Jean Genet in The Thief's Journal. Enigmatic and silent, snatched from the earth by Jupiter's eagle, the young Trojan became the cupbearer of the gods, immortalized in the constellation of Aquarius. Before contemporary criticism made him an emblem of homosexuality, Ganymede inspired both the figurative arts (Botticelli, Correggio, Michelangelo, Rubens, Rembrandt, Flatters, Thorvaldsen, Pallez, Turcan...) and, since the Homeric and Ovidian episodes, a rich literature: we find him in particular in the work of Dante, Géngora, Du Bellay, in the theater of Marlowe and Shakespeare, in the Romantic age in Goethe's poem which became lieder by Schubert and Wolf, in the poetry of Hölderlin, Lamartine and Musset, in the following century in the works of Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen, Forster, Thomas Mann... Ganymede illustrates the beauty of the male body and its eroticism, but also an idea of eternal youth; his abduction can be an image of the sublime, and, through his function as divine cupbearer, he embodies a certain conception of poetic inspiration and enthusiasm, a counterpart of which can be found in Arabic and Persian poetry. The studies brought together here aim, from a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective, to discover the complexity and the stakes of this surprisingly modern myth.