Natural Classicism: Essays on Literature and Science

by Frederick Turner

Turner, Frederick, Natural Essays On Literature And Science

284 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Frederick Turner was born in Northamptonshire, England, in 1943. After spending several years in central Africa, where his parents, the anthropologists Victor W. and Edith L. B. Turner, were conducting field research, Frederick Turner was educated at the University of Oxford (1962-67), where he obtained the degrees of B.A., M.A., and B.Litt. (equivalent to a PhD) in English Language and Literature. He was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 1977.
He is presently Founders Professor of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. From 1978-82 he was editor of The Kenyon Review.

Reviews

[Troy Camplin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Turner's first thoughts on what would be his fully-developed new paradigm for the arts.

[Connie Kronlokken]

Interesting early thinking from Frederick Turner, especially on how the arts, perform into being the world.

Ritual served evolution. Reading is actually performance. "The morally valuable kind of literature is that which ennobles its reader/performer, and the morally evil kind is the kind which seduces into corruption the 'actor' of it; not directly as a person, but indirectly through the performance."

"Thoreau independently intuited both the anthropological perspective and the essential spirit of evolution," finding his way toward a view of people as part of nature.