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Summary
Summary
Bolder, even, than the ambitious books for which Stephen Greenblatt is already renowned, The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve explores the enduring story of humanity's first parents. Comprising only a few ancient verses, the story of Adam and Eve has served as a mirror in which we seem to glimpse the whole, long history of our fears and desires, as both a hymn to human responsibility and a dark fable about human wretchedness.
Tracking the tale into the deep past, Greenblatt uncovers the tremendous theological, artistic, and cultural investment over centuries that made these fictional figures so profoundly resonant in the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim worlds and, finally, so very "real" to millions of people even in the present. With the uncanny brilliance he previously brought to his depictions of William Shakespeare and Poggio Bracciolini (the humanist monk who is the protagonist of The Swerve), Greenblatt explores the intensely personal engagement of Augustine, Dürer, and Milton in this mammoth project of collective creation, while he also limns the diversity of the story's offspring: rich allegory, vicious misogyny, deep moral insight, and some of the greatest triumphs of art and literature.
The biblical origin story, Greenblatt argues, is a model for what the humanities still have to offer: not the scientific nature of things, but rather a deep encounter with problems that have gripped our species for as long as we can recall and that continue to fascinate and trouble us today.
Author Notes
Stephen Greenblatt is a literary critic, theorist and scholar.
He is the author of Three Modern Satirists: Waugh, Orwell, and Huxley (1965); Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (1980); Learning to Curse: Essays in Early Modern Culture (1990); Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies (1992); The Norton Shakespeare (1997); Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (2004); Shakespeare's Freedom (2010); and The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011).
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In this fascinating exploration, Greenblatt (The Swerve), a Harvard humanities professor and Pulitzer-winning author, probes the "beauty, power, and influence" that the Adam and Eve story has held through millennia. Utilizing recent archaeological discoveries, Greenblatt compares the Genesis account, first written as a "counternarrative to the Babylonian creation story" by Hebrews returning to Jerusalem from exile, to both the ancient Gilgamesh legend and long-forgotten alternative narratives recently discovered near Nag Hammadi, Egypt, such as "The Life of Adam and Eve." Greenblatt undertakes an in-depth analysis of key historical figures whose obsession wielded enormous impact on religion and culture: Augustine's insistence on the story's literal truth led to the concept of original sin; Albrecht Dürer's engraving The Fall of Man captured "the sheer unconstrained beauty of... our first parents"; John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost realized them as "flesh-and-blood people." Greenblatt then explores how the European discovery of New World natives, Voltaire's insistence on the story's allegorical nature, and, finally, Darwin's evolutionary theory led to today's widespread acceptance of the story as myth. In a beautiful closing chapter, Greenblatt studies Ugandan chimpanzees for "traces of the Bible story... [in] the actual origins of our species." This is an erudite yet accessible page-turner. (Sept.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Alive in the painting of van Eyck, the etching of Dürer, and the poetry of Milton, Adam and Eve fascinate Greenblatt, who marvels at how much this primal pair have shaped Western culture. Probing the history of the biblical account of human origins, readers learn how sharply it differs from the Mesopotamian creation myth that Hebrew exiles encountered during their time in Babylon. Unlike the Mesopotamian myth, which depicts Gilgamesh and Enkidu's triumph over adversity, Genesis chronicles the universal human fall consequent to Adam and Eve's partaking of forbidden fruit. Readers see how the shadows of the fallen Adam and Eve persisted in Judeo-Christian theology as well as Western philosophy, art, politics, and sexual ethics. But Greenblatt persuasively argues that Adam and Eve would look different if Origen had persuaded the early church to accept his allegorical understanding of the pair. Instead, Augustine impressed on the Christian mind a sternly literal understanding of Adam and Eve, leaving later believers unprepared for Darwin's scientific explanation of human beginnings. Though not a believer himself, Greenblatt worries that the imaginative and narrative aridity of Darwin's explanation of the first hominids has made it a problematic substitute for the scriptural account of Adam and Eve. An impressively wide-ranging inquiry.--Christensen, Bryce Copyright 2017 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Greenblatt (John Cogan Univ. Professor of the Humanities, Harvard Univ.; The Swerve) explores one of humanity's most extraordinary stories: the biblical account of Adam and Eve. Beginning with its written origins during the Hebrews' exile in Babylon surrounded by competing Mesopotamian creation myths, and continuing through Darwinian evolution, Greenblatt thoughtfully meanders through various understandings of this narrative over time. Two of the most prominent figures in the book are -Augustine, who set Western Christendom on a course away from an allegorical interpretation toward a more strictly literal one, and poet John Milton, whose Paradise Lost was, in many ways, the culmination of Augustine's vision. Ironically, the more real Adam and Eve appeared, the more problematic a literal interpretation became for many readers. In the end, Greenblatt hopes to rescue the story from the misogynistic and sexually oppressive consequences of an Augustinian interpretation and restore its creative and imaginative power as enduring literature. While readers with a special interest in one of the many subfields touched upon may wish for more, Greenblatt has shaped an enjoyable and well-paced narrative that effectively draws from many disciplines. -VERDICT Recommended for readers attentive to deep truths embedded in a good story. [See Prepub Alert, 3/13/17.]- Brian Sullivan, Alfred Univ. Lib., NY © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Prologue: In the House of Worship | p. 1 |
| 1 Bake Bones | p. 5 |
| 2 By the Waters of Babylon | p. 21 |
| 3 Clay Tablets | p. 39 |
| 4 The Life of Adam and Eve | p. 64 |
| 5 In the Bathhouse | p. 81 |
| 6 Original Freedom, Original Sin | p. 98 |
| 7 Eve's Murder | p. 120 |
| 8 Embodiments | p. 139 |
| 9 Chastity and its Discontents | p. 163 |
| 10 The Politics of Paradise | p. 189 |
| 11 Becoming Real | p. 204 |
| 12 Men Before Adam | p. 231 |
| 13 Falling Away | p. 250 |
| 14 Darwin's Doubts | p. 269 |
| Epilogue: In the Forest of Eden | p. 285 |
| Appendix 1 A Sampling of Interpretations | p. 303 |
| Appendix 2 A Sampling of Origin Stories | p. 313 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 321 |
| Notes | p. 325 |
| Selected Bibliography | p. 367 |
| Illustration Credits | p. 393 |
| Index | p. 397 |