Lucian of Samosata Vivus Et Redivivus

Book excerpt: The essays in this volume bring together, in a revised and updated form, papers presented at a colloquium held at the Warburg Institute in December 1995. As the title suggests, Lucian is considered both in his contemporary environment and in his Nachleben, and the overall purpose is to show the freshness and resilience of the presence in European culture of an author whose well-aimed satirical wit has, from his time to ours, led to defensive attempts at repression and expulsion from the cultural canon. As Kurt Tucholsky put it, nothing was sacred to Lucian, which makes him a 'friend, cousin, brother, comrade at arms'.