The Pagan Dream
of the Renaissance

by Joscelyn Godwin
 

During the Renaissance, a profound transformation occured in Western culture, fueled in large part by the rediscovery of the mythological, pagan imagination. While the Greek gods and goddesses had never been entirely eclipsed during the “Dark Ages,” with the Renaissance their presence once again became a powerful force in Western civilization. This large format and highly illustrated book provides new perspectives on this phenomenon, demonstrating how the pagan revival permeated every aspect of Renaissance life and culture.

Joscelyn Godwin explains how the European imagination was seduced by the pagan gods, and how people of wealth and leisure began to decorate their villas and palaces with images of them, write stories about them, and even produce music and dramatic pageants about them. In one of the most fascinating chapters, he explores the “garden magic” of the Renaissance villas, and takes the reader on a stunning tour of these complex esoteric landscapes, in which transformations of the soul become possible. Godwin investigates how the pagan imagination existed side-by-side — sometimes uneasily — with the official symbols and doctrines of the Church, and documents how pagan themes were used to enhance both public and private life.

In its deepest and most vibrant form, we discover how the pagan dream of the Renaissance represented nostalgia for a classical world untroubled by sin and in no need of redemption.

Over-size hardcover with 250 photographs and reproductions

C H A P T E R S

Seduction by the Gods • The Strife of Love in a Dream • Re-ordering the World • The Enchantment of Public Spaces • Private Microcosms • Marvels of Art and Nature • Grotesqueries • Garden Magic • Joyous Festivals • The Birth of Opera • Versailles and After

Advance Praise for The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance

“The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance is a gem of a book, and I mean that with all the resonance of alchemy, beauty, magic, and art. It’s an exquisitely written tour of a still rather unknown practice in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries when art was linked directly to the mysteries that comprise human life. If you want a doorway to a world far richer than the one of inanimate machinery and mere information that is ours, enter the dream of this book, which doesn’t just describe but evokes the genius of those times.” — Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Soul’s Religion

“If anything proves that Renaissance imagination is divine and immortal, Joscelyn Godwin’s Pagan Dream does. And further, its own impeccable, poliphilic scholarship subtly reveals at every step the objective reality of the Imaginal world. This compendium of voluptuous images of the soul’s longing for beauty is a fountain of delight.” — Noel Cobb, author of Archetypal Imagination: Glimpses of the Gods in Art and Life

“Godwin gives us a chamber of wonders that’s also a map of dreams, a guidebook to Neoplatonic eroticism, Hermeticism, and the grotesque. No one since Dame Frances Yates has done as much for this strange lost religion of beauty as Joscelyn Godwin.” — Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of Sacred Drift: Essays on the Margins of Islam

“Joscelyn Godwin once again leads his readers into the mysterious realms of the Western imagination, enabling us to grasp the connections between past and present dreams. Packed with an amazing amount of knowledge, this enchanting book is an essential guide to the theory and practice of Renaissance natural magic.” — Penelope Gouk, author of Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth Century England

“In The Pagan Dream of the Renaissance, Joscelyn Godwin excites the imagination at every turn. But it is his fundamental grasp of the inner meaning of this often tortuous terrain, and his sheer humanity that leaves one gasping with wonderment, with pleasure, and with humor. We are all fortunate, indeed, that a Titan of this stature can bring the balm of true wisdom to our disturbed Age.” — Anthony Rooley, international recording artist and founder of The Consort of Musicke

About the Author

Joscelyn Godwin is professor of music at Colgate University and the author of over fifteen highly-regarded books on music, harmony, and the Western esoteric traditions. Some of his many books include Harmonies of Heaven and Earth: Mysticism in Music from Antiquity to the Avant Garden; Robert Fludd: Hermetic Philosopher and Surveyor of Two Worlds; Mystery Religions in the Ancient World; and a translation of The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (The Strife of Love in a Dream).