A Dictionary of Symbols

”[Cirlot’s] book is not merely a reference work for students of symbology, but a book to be read at leisure. It does indeed provide informative and interesting reading. The longer entries can be read as independent essays, but it is only by reading through the volume steadily that one can become aware of the intricate interrelations of symbolic meanings.” –Catherine D. Rau, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism “[This] is a volume which can either be used as a work of reference, or simply read for pleasure and instruction. There are many entries in this dictionary–those on Architecture, Colour, Cross, Graphics, Mandala, Numbers, Serpent, Water, Zodiac, to give a few examples–which can be read as independent essays. But in general the greatest use of the volume will be for the elucidation of those many symbols which we encounter in the arts and in the history of ideas. Man, it has been said, is a symbolizing animal; it is evident that at no stage in the development of civilization has man been able to dispense with symbols.” –Herbert Read

Juan Eduardo Cirlot (1916-1973) was a poet, art critic, hermeneutist, mythologist, and musician. He wrote several books on the history and theory of art, published several poetry collections, and composed music.

Philip Pullman is the author of the trilogy His Dark Materials, the third book of which, The Amber Spyglass, was the first children’s book to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award in the UK. His most recent novel is The Book of Dust- La Belle Sauvage, the first book in a new companion trilogy to His Dark Materials. He lives in Oxford, England.

Valerie Miles, an editor, writer, and translator, co-founded the literary journal Granta in Spanish and also established the NYRB Classics series in Spanish. She curated the first exhibition dedicated to Roberto Bolano’s archive papers. She is author of A Thousand Forests in One Acorn. She lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Victoria Cirlot, is a medieval scholar and professor of Romance Philology at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. Her recent books include La visi n abierta, Del mito del grial al surrealismo and Grial. Poetica y mito.