Classical Indiscretions A Millennial Enquiry into the Status of the Classics [Paperback]

Maurizio Bettini argues that oral culture, because it does not have an inexhaustible memory at its disposal, tends to preserve its cultural inheritance. But written culture forgets nothing: but when everything can be recalled or somehow retrieved, the problem becomes what to remember and what to consign to oblivion.

This provocative book, written with a light touch, rooted in the Classics but ranging over the whole of Western literary culture, addresses many of the major issues that face us at the turn of the millennium. What is our shared cultural currency? What use - good or bad - do we make of it? Why should anyone involve themselves with the Classics? Features and themes of our time  the relentless anniversary, the magpie nature of the anthology, the urge for instant gratification, the attraction of the cultural canon, the way writing can imprison - are brought together in a passionate plea for the Classics as essentially impervious to these vulgar urges of our age - the Age of Indiscretion.

Rooted in the Classics but ranging over the whole of Western literary culture, this book addresses many of the major issues that face us at the turn of the millennium: What is our shared cultural currency? What use do we make of it? Why should anyone involve themselves with the Classics?

Preface
1. The Age of Futility
2. The Tyranny of Time
3. The Urge for Instant Gratification
4. Belated Invocation
5. Time and the Canon
6. The Search for the Classics
7. The Classics in an Age of Indiscretion
Epilogue
Notes
Index

Classical Philology at the University of Siena, Italy, and at the University of California at Berkeley. His publications includeThe Portrait of the Lover.