The Powers of Genre describes a method for interpreting oral literature that depends upon and facilitates dialogue between insiders and outsiders to a tradition.
Classical Myth and Culture in the Cinema is a collection of essays presenting a variety of approaches to films set in ancient Greece and Rome and to films that reflect archetypal features of classical literature.
Visions of the Buddha offers a ground-breaking approach to the nature of the early discourses of the Buddha, the most foundational scriptures of Buddhist religion.
The Truth of Myth is a thorough and accessible introduction to the study of myth, surveying the intellectual history of the topic, methods for studying myth cross-culturally, and emerging trends.
This innovative study posits that myths in general, and Greek theogonic myth in particular, have a latent meaning that is responsible both for the emotional energy inherent in myths, and for the special attraction they have even to those who no longer believe in their literal meaning.
Long studied by anthropologists, historians, and linguists, oral traditions have provided a wealth of fascinating insights into unique cultural customs that span the history of humankind.
Exploring the hero's journey as a metaphor for spiritual evolution in The Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Iliad, and Virgil's Aeneid, and focusing in particular on the relationship of the hero to one or more "e;second selves,"e; or alter egos, Van Nortwick demonstrates how the poems address central and enduring truths about human life: that the exertion of heroic will in pursuit of glory can lead to alienation from one's own deepest self and that spiritual wholeness can only be achieved through confrontation with what appears at first to be the very negation of the self.
Boasting a rich, complex history rooted in Celtic and Christian ritual, Halloween has evolved from ethnic celebration to a blend of street festival, fright night, and vast commercial enterprise.
Esteemed scholar David Leeming, who has authored more than twelve books on mythology, here offers the first comprehensive narrative study of the mythology of the Middle East, that tumultuous region that was the cradle of civilization.
Teeming with creatures, both real and imagined, this encyclopedic study in cultural history illuminates the hidden web of connections between the Victorian fascination with fairies and their lore and the dominant preoccupations of Victorian culture at large.
Many cultures have myths about self-imitation, stories about people who pretend to be someone else pretending to be them, in effect masquerading as themselves.
Oedipus the King is the best-known play we have from the pen of Sophocles and was recognized as a masterpiece in Aristotle's Poetics, which cites the play more often than any other as an example of how to write tragedy.
Oedipus the King is the best-known play we have from the pen of Sophocles and was recognized as a masterpiece in Aristotle's Poetics, which cites the play more often than any other as an example of how to write tragedy.
Written texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey achieved an unprecedented degree of standardization after 150 BCE, but what about Homeric texts prior to the emergence of standardized written texts?
Written texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey achieved an unprecedented degree of standardization after 150 BCE, but what about Homeric texts prior to the emergence of standardized written texts?
A recurring and significant theme in ancient Greek literature is that of returns and returning, chiefly - but by no means only - of mythical Greek heroes from Troy.
A recurring and significant theme in ancient Greek literature is that of returns and returning, chiefly - but by no means only - of mythical Greek heroes from Troy.
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies-texts that collected and explained ancient myths-were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature.
Greco-Roman mythology and its reception are at the heart of the European Renaissance, and mythographies-texts that collected and explained ancient myths-were considered indispensable companions to any reader of literature.
The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives: Oral Traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia investigates both the construction of the Homeric simile and the performance of Homeric poetry from neglected comparative perspectives, offering a revealing exploration of what made the epics such powerful examples of verbal artistry.
The Homeric Simile in Comparative Perspectives: Oral Traditions from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia investigates both the construction of the Homeric simile and the performance of Homeric poetry from neglected comparative perspectives, offering a revealing exploration of what made the epics such powerful examples of verbal artistry.
Myths of the Underworld in Contemporary Culture: The Backward Gaze examines a series of twentieth and twenty-first century fictional works that adapt Greco-Roman myths of the catabasis, the heroic journey to the underworld.
This volume takes as its subject one of the most important Greek poems of the Hellenistic period: the Alexandra attributed to Lykophron, probably written in about 190 BC.
'She sees, coming up a second time,Earth from the ocean, eternally green;the waterfalls plunge, an eagle soars above them,over the mountain hunting fish.
This is a new English translation of a classic of medieval Islamic learning, which illuminates the intellectual debates of its age and speaks vividly to the concerns of our own.
The Indo-Europeans, speakers of the prehistoric parent language from which most European and some Asiatic languages are descended, most probably lived on the Eurasian steppes some five or six thousand years ago.
Each chapter of this book takes as its starting point a myth, a legend, a story or a fable, and explores its contemporary relevance for a world of globalization, organizations and, consumerism.
Skaldic Verse and the Poetics of Saga Narrative is a study of the varying relationships between verse and prose in a series of Old Norse-Icelandic saga narratives.
