These mythological poems include the Voluspo, one of the broadest literary conceptions of the world's creation and ultimate destruction; the Lokasenna, a comedy bursting with vivid characterizations; and more.

    His father murdered, his estate seized, he himself mutilated by a rival landowner.

    Jones and Fogelin weave key passages from classic philosophy works into their comments and criticisms, giving A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY the combined advantages of a source book and textbook. The text concentrates on major figures in each historical period, combining exposition with direct quotations from the philosophers themselves. The text places philosophers in appropriate cultural context and shows how their theories reflect the concerns of their times.

    A compilation of fine heroic tales.

    

    

    Holmes explores the ideas of the humanists and traces their influence on the writing of history, political philosophy, and aesthetics. The new humanist secular thought was paralleled, and even directly applied in some cases, by a number of brilliant Florentine artists headed by Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masaccio. In architecture, sculpture, and painting these men produced masterpieces which gave form to the humanist ideal of classical inspiration related to real life. Holmes examines this brief but enlightened phase in the history of art and ideas within its historical context, setting it against the background of Florence's fluctuating relationship with an enfeebled papacy and the wider Italian political scene.