The Greek View of Life: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Greek View of Life, credited to Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Greek View of Life, by Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson. Read by Martin Geeson. “With the Greek civilisation beauty perished from the world. Never again has it been possible for man to believe that harmony is in fact the truth of all existence.” This elegantly-written work provides a splendid introduction to the Greeks of the classic period: how they thought, wrote, and organised their lives and loves. Although it dates from the 1890s, there is very little about it that has dated. To its author’s credit, the subject of “Greek love” is dealt with in a sane and factual context - despite the judicial assassination of Oscar Wilde going on in the background. A Cambridge don much admired by his students (including E. M. Forster), Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson belonged to the Apostles, a secret society with a strong ethic of male friendship. Alfred Tennyson and his beloved Arthur Hallam were early members. Dickinson is chiefly remembered as a historian and pacifist who played a significant part in the founding of the League of Nations. Inevitably, given his interests and intellectual background, he became a close associate of the Bloomsbury Group. The Greek View of Life is no dry academic tome. It is a popularizing work in the best sense: accessibly written and illustrated with apt quotations given in sturdy translations, never in the original Greek. It is a joy to read. (Introduction by Martin Geeson)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Greek View of Life
• Author credits: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 52
• Listed recording duration: 10:55:53

Catalogue topics

• nonfiction
• Classical Civilisation
• Hellenism
• Cambridge Apostles
• Bloomsbury Group
• Greek Civilization

Opening tracks: first 24 of 52

1. 01 - Chapter I: The Greek View of Religion. Section 1 - Introductory — 4:33
2. 02 - I.2 Greek Religion an Interpretation of Nature — 15:42
3. 03 - I.3 Greek Religion an Interpretation of the Human Passions — 4:11
4. 04 - I.4 Greek Religion the Foundation of Society — 8:33
5. 05 - I.5 Religious Festivals — 15:00
6. 06 - I.6 The Greek Conception of the Relation of Man to the Gods — 7:45
7. 07 - I.7 Divination, Omens, Oracles — 7:05
8. 08 - I.8 Sacrifice and Atonement — 7:52
9. 09 - I.9 Guilt and Punishment — 9:27
10. 10 - I.10 Mysticism — 13:01
11. 11 - I.11 The Greek View of Death and a Future Life — 19:37
12. 12 - I.12 Critical and Sceptical Opinion in Greece — 13:22
13. 13 - I.13 Ethical Criticism — 13:12
14. 14 - I.14 Transition to Monotheism — 8:45
15. 15 - I.15 Metaphysical Criticism — 15:03
16. 16 - I.16 Metaphysical Reconstruction - Plato — 9:50
17. 17 - I.17 Summary — 10:28
18. 18 - Chapter II: The Greek View of the State. Section 1 - The Greek State a 'City' — 4:26
19. 19 - II.2 The Relation of the State to the Citizen — 9:26
20. 20 - II.3 The Greek View of Law — 5:24
21. 21 - II.4 Artisans and Slaves — 16:09
22. 22 - II.5 The Greek State Primarily Military, not Industrial — 8:24
23. 23 - II.6 Forms of Government in the Greek State — 4:37
24. 24 - II.7 Faction and Anarchy — 13:52

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This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.