The Abyss as a Concept for Cultural Theory

A Comparative Exploration
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-90-04-52416-3
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 106, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 157 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature

This edited volume provides a comparative exploration of corresponding concepts of the abyss in various languages and cultures. Fourteen chapters investigate ancient cultures such as Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Old Norse, but also more contemporary American, African and Asian languages, such as Hawaiian, Umbundu, Chinese and Khasi, as well as European languages, such as German, Estonian, English, French, Polish and Russian. The book combines ethnolinguistics with history of ideas, literature, folklore, religion and translation, based on the conviction that language and our linguistic concepts give evidence of and shape our ideas about the world and about ourselves.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Weitere Mitwirkende

Pajevic, Marko

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturtheorie: Poetik und Literaturästhetik
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Historische & Vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft, Sprachtypologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: The Abyss as a Concept for Cultural Theory, and German Abgrund: The Ambivalence of the Human

Marko Pajevic

Part 1 Ancient Cultures

1 Praising God’s Creation in the Abyss: t?hom in Biblical and Apocalyptic Literature

Urmas Nõmmik

2 The Origins of the ???ss?? in Greek

Janika Päll

3 The Birth of the Abyss in the Rigveda

Sven Sellmer

4 Before the Creation in Old Norse Mythology—Empty Abyss or Crowded Place

Daniel Sävborg

Part 2 American, African and Asian Cultures

5 Hanau ka Po: The Abyss in Hawaiian Thought

Michael David Kaulana Ing

6 The Void Against Transparency: Translating the Abyss into Umbundu

Iracema Dulley

7 Abyss, Chaos, and Emptiness. A Journey to the Depths of the Chinese Intellectual Tradition

Lisa Indraccolo

8 The Abyss in the Indigenous Khasi Worldview: The Search for Traditional Models

Margaret Lyngdoh and Laur Järv

Part 3 European Cultures

9 Journey to the North: The Experience of the Abyss in Mythology and Philosophy

Jaanus Sooväli and Hasso Krull

10 An Exploration of the Meaning and Usage of Abyss in English

Violeta Stojicic

11 In Search of Abyssos in Contemporary French Through Lexical Pathways

Arkadiusz Koselak-Marechal

12 The Abyss in Polish

Adam Glaz

13 The Doubling of Bezdna: Notes on the Russian Poetic Concept of Abyss

Roman Leibov

Über Autor(innen)

Professor Marko Pajevic held positions in leading Universities in France, the UK, Germany and Estonia. He publishes widely on poetics, literature, translation and cultural theory, and developed a poetological anthropology, recently in English: Poetic Thinking. Now (Routledge 2023).