A Dictionary of Symbols

This is an inventory of symbols and the symbolic imagination. The editors and their fifteen contributors are drawn from a variety of scholarly backgrounds, from anthropology and ethnology to psychotherapy and art history. This diversity of approach is responsible for the book's character, a reflection of the multiplicity of symbols and signs and the phenomenal range of possible interpretations they offer. The book draws together folklore, literary and artistic sources, and focuses on the symbolic dimension of every colour, number, sound, gesture, expression or character trait that has benefitted from symbolic interpretation. The conscious and unconscious minds are explored, desire and dreams are treated alongside the known and the chronicled. Its 1600 entries are indexed to a comprehensive bibliography.