Pan — he of the cloven hoof and lustful grin, beckoning through the trees. From classical myth to modern literature, film and music, the god Pan has fascinated and terrified the western imagination. ‘Panic’ is the name given to the peculiar feeling we experience in his presence. Still, the ways in which Pan has been imagined have varied wildly – fitting for a god even whose name the ancients confused with the Greek word meaning ‘all’.
Part-goat, part-man, Pan bridges the divide between the human and animal worlds. In exquisite prose, Paul Robichaud explores how he has been imagined in mythology, art, literature, music, spirituality and popular culture through the centuries. At times, Pan is a dangerous, destabilising force; at others, a source of fertility and renewal. His portrayals reveal shifting anxieties about our own animal impulses and our relationship to nature. Always the outsider, he has been the god of choice for gay writers, occult practitioners, and New Age mystics. Though ancient sources announced his death, he has lived on through the work of Arthur Machen, Gustav Mahler, Kenneth Grahame, D. H. Lawrence and countless others. Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return traces his intoxicating dance.
