Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 435 g
Greek Myth in Cultural Context
Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 174 mm x 228 mm, Gewicht: 435 g
ISBN: 978-0-8018-6954-9
Verlag: Johns Hopkins University Press
Winner of the Translation Prize for non-fiction from the French-American Foundation.
Son of a mortal king and an immortal Muse, Orpheus possessed a gift for music unmatched among humans; with his lyre he could turn the course of rivers, drown the fatal song of the Sirens, and charm the denizens of the underworld. The allure of his music speaks through the myths and stories of the Greeks and Romans, who tell of his mysterious compositions, with lyrics that only the initiated could understand after undergoing secret rites. Where readers of subsequent centuries have been content to understand these mysteries as the stuff of obfuscation or mere folderol, Marcel Detienne finds in the writing of Orpheus a key to the thinking of the ancient Greeks.
A profound understanding of ancient Greek myth in its cultural contexts allows Detienne to recover a cultural system from fragments and ephemera—to reproduce, with sensitivity to variation and nuance, the full richness of the mythological repertoire flowing from the writing of Orpheus. His investigation moves from the Orphic writings to broader mysteries: how Greek gods became myths, how myths informed later religious thinking, and how myths have come into play in polemics between competing religions. An eloquent answer to some of the most vexing questions about the myth of Orpheus and its far-reaching ramifications through time and culture, Detienne's work ultimately offers a major rethinking of Greek mythology.
Weitere Infos & Material
Author's Note
Translator's Note
Preface to the English-Language Edition
Part I: From Myth to Mythology
Chapter 1. The Genealogy of a Body of Thought
Chapter 2. What the Greeks Called "Myth"
Chapter 3. Mythology, Writing and Forms of Historicity
Chapter 4. The Practices on Myth-Analysis
Part II: Does Mythology Have a Sex?
Chapter 5. The Danaids among Themselves: Marriage Founded
Chapter 6. A Kitchen Garden for Women, or How to Engender on One's Own
Chapter 7. Misogynous Hestia, or the City in Its Autonomy
Chapter 8. Even Talk Is in Some Ways Divine
Part III: Between the Labyrinth and the Overturned Table9. An Ephebe and an Olive Tree
Chapter 10. The Craine and the Labyrinth
Chapter 11. The Finger of Orestes
Chapter 12. At Lycaon's TablePART IV: Writing Mythology
Chapter 13. An Inventive Writing, the Voice of Orpheus, and the Games of Palamedes
Chapter 14. The Double Writing of Mythology (between the Timaeus and the Critias)
Chapter 15. Orpheus Rewrites the City GodsNotes
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Index
