Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Non-Christian religions > Pre-Christian European & Mediterranean religions > Ancient Greek religion
|
Buy Now
Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,151
Discovery Miles 11 510
|
|
Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity (Paperback)
Expected to ship within 12 - 17 working days
|
Donate to Against Period Poverty
Total price: R1,171
Discovery Miles: 11 710
|
The Greek myths are characteristically fabulous; they are full of
monsters, metamorphoses, and the supernatural. However, they could
be told in other ways as well. This volume charts ancient
dissatisfaction with the excesses of myth, and the various attempts
to cut these stories down to size by explaining them as
misunderstood accounts of actual events. In the hands of ancient
rationalizers, the hybrid forms of the Centaurs become early
horse-riders, seen from a distance; the Minotaur the result of an
illicit liaison, not an inter-species love affair; and Cerberus,
nothing more than a notorious snake with a lethal bite. Such
approaches form an indigenous mode of ancient myth criticism, and
show Greeks grappling with the value and utility of their own
narrative traditions. Rationalizing interpretations offer an
insight into the practical difficulties inherent in distinguishing
myth from history in ancient Greece, and indeed the fragmented
nature of myth itself as a conceptual entity. By focusing on six
Greek authors (Palaephatus, Heraclitus, Excerpta Vaticana, Conon,
Plutarch, and Pausanias) and tracing the development of
rationalistic interpretation from the fourth century BC to the
Second Sophistic (first to second centuries AD) and beyond,
Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity shows that, far from being
marginalized as it has been in the past, rationalization should be
understood as a fundamental component of the pluralistic and
shifting network of Greek myth as it was experienced in antiquity.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
|
You might also like..
|
Email address subscribed successfully.
A activation email has been sent to you.
Please click the link in that email to activate your subscription.