Iris Exiled

Book excerpt: Iris Exiled is a critical history of wonder from the Bible and Homer to modern times. Dennis Quinn examines the subject in relation to various disciplines and modes of discourse- philosophy, theology, poetry, art myth, history, rhetoric, psychology, education, and modern science. Quinn shows that wonder, originally seen as the principle of philosophy and poetry and as a passion essential to the highest order of education, has been weakened by certain intellectual, cultural, and religious shifts during the past 600 years. The history is synoptic in two senses of the word: it is comprehensive but selective, and illustrative not exhaustive. Iris Exiled is presented from a single theoretical perspective, that of the original understanding of wonder as developed and set forth by such authors as Plato, Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Ruskin, and Joseph Pieper, as well as a host of other writers of all kinds and from all eras of western history.