Book description
For at least two and a half millennia, the figure of Orpheus has
haunted humanity. Half-man, half-god, musician, magician, theologian,
poet and lover, his story never leaves us. He may be myth, but his
lyre still sounds, entrancing everything that hears it: animals,
trees, water, stones, and men.
In this extraordinary work Ann Wroe goes in search of Orpheus, from
the forests where he walked and the mountains where he worshipped to
the artefacts, texts and philosophies built up round him. She traces
the man, and the power he represents, through the myriad versions of a
fantastical life: his birth in Thrace, his studies in Egypt, his
voyage with the Argonauts to fetch the Golden Fleece, his love for
Eurydice and journey to Hades, and his terrible death.
We see him tantalising Cicero and Plato, and breathing new music
into Gluck and Monteverdi; occupying the mind of Jung and the surreal
dreams of Cocteau; scandalising the Fathers of the early Church, and
filling Rilke with poems like a whirlwind. He emerges as not simply
another mythical figure but the force of creation itself, singing the
song of light out of darkness and life out of death.
Ann Wroe is the Briefings and Obituaries Editor of the
Economist
. After taking a degree in History and a doctorate in medieval history
(Oxford, 1975) she worked at the BBC World Service, covering French and
Italian politics. She joined the
Economist
in 1976 to cover American politics, and has held the posts of Books and
Arts editor (1988-1992) and American editor (1992-2000). She has written
five books:
Lives, Lies and the Iran-Contra Affair
;
A Fool and His Money: Life in a Partitioned Medieval Town
;
Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man
;
Perkin: A Story of Deception
and
Being Shelley: The Poet's Search for Himself
. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society
of Literature. She is married with three sons and lives in London.
