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Books > Language & Literature > Literature: texts > Essays, journals, letters & other prose works > Classical, early & medieval
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Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R2,416
Discovery Miles 24 160
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Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods (Hardcover)
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The hatching of the Cosmic Egg, the swallowing of Phanes by Zeus,
and the murder of Dionysus by the Titans were just a few of the
many stories that appeared in ancient Greek epic poems that were
thought to have been written by the legendary singer Orpheus. Most
of this poetry is now lost, surviving only in the form of brief
quotations by Greek philosophers. Orphic Tradition and the Birth of
the Gods brings together the scattered fragments of four Orphic
theogonies: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic
theogonies. Typically, theogonies are thought to be poetic accounts
of the creation of the universe and the births of the gods, leading
to the creation of humans and the establishment of the present
state of the cosmos. The most famous example is Hesiod's Theogony,
which unlike the Orphic theogonies has survived. But did Orphic
theogonies look anything like Hesiod's Theogony? Meisner applies a
new theoretical model for studying Orphic theogonies and suggests
certain features that characterize them as different from Hesiod:
the blending of Near Eastern narrative elements that are missing in
Hesiod; the probability that these were short hymns, more like the
Homeric Hymns than Hesiod; and the continuous discourse between
myth and philosophy that can be seen in Orphic poems and the
philosophers who quote them. Most importantly, this book argues
that the Orphic myths of Phanes emerging from the Cosmic Egg and
Zeus swallowing Phanes are at least as important as the well-known
myth of Dionysus being dismembered by the Titans, long thought to
have been the central myth of Orphism. As this book amply
demonstrates, Orphic literature was a diverse and ever-changing
tradition by which authors were able to think about the most
current philosophical ideas through the medium of the most
traditional poetic forms.
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