Beyond its housing estates and identikit high streets there is another Britain. This is the Britain of mist-drenched forests and unpredictable sea-frets: of wraith-like fog banks, druidic mistletoe ...and peculiar creatures that lurk, half-unseen, in the undergrowth, tantalising and teasing just at the periphery of human vision. How have the remarkably persistent folkloric traditions of the British Isles formed and been formed by the identities and psyches of those who inhabit them? In her sparkling new history, Carolyne Larrington explores the diverse ways in which a myriad of imaginary and fantastical beings has moulded the cultural history of the nation. Fairies, elves and goblins here tread purposefully, sometimes malignly, over an eerie, preternatural landscape that also conceals brownies, selkies, trows, knockers, boggarts, land-wights, Jack o'Lanterns, Bargests, the sinister Nuckelavee, or water-horse, and even Black Shuck: terrifying hell-hound of the Norfolk coast with eyes of burning coal.Focusing on liminal points where the boundaries between this world and that of the supernatural grow thin - those marginal tide-banks, saltmarshes, floodplains, moors and rock-pools wherein mystery lies - the author shows how mythologies of mermen, Green Men and Wild Men have helped and continue to help human beings deal with such ubiquitous concerns as love and lust, loss and death and continuity and change. Evoking the Wild Hunt, the ghostly bells of Lyonesse and the dread fenlands haunted by Grendel, and ranging the while from Shetland to Jersey and from Ireland to East Anglia, this is a book that will captivate all those who long for the wild places: the mountains and chasms where Gog, Magog and their fellow giants lie in wait.
This book greatly enhances our knowledge of the interrelationship of Greek religion & culture and the Ancient Near East by offering important analyses of Greek myths, divinities and terms like ...'magic' and 'paradise', but also of the Greek contribution to the Christian notion of atonement.
"The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is one of the landmarks of twentieth century philosophy. Drawing from the influential work of Wilhelm Dilthey, it transformed neo-Kantianism into a new robust ...philosophy of culture. The second volume, on Mythical Thinking, analyzes the fundamental layers of perception and expression as well as the articulations with religion and the dialectic with other forms, essentially language and art.
The intellectual breadth of the volume is remarkable. It initiated the debate with Martin Heidegger and prompted a long-lasting meditation by Hans Blumenberg. We are only beginning to recognize its importance for our understanding of the power of images in the construction of aesthetics, the self, and the socio-political world. It initiated a discussion within French sociology (Émile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss) that ultimately resurfaced in Pierre Bourdieu, while today it is considered as a resourceful path for cultural and critical theory (Drucilla Cornell and Kenneth M. Panfilio). Finally, this volume also offers solid grounds for a political critique of Nazism - specifically: Alfred Rosenberg's Myth of the 20th Century and Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf - as well as the new emerging totalitarian ideologies."Fabien Capeilleres, Professor of Philosophy, editor of the French edition of Cassirer's Works.
This new translation makes Cassirer's seminal work available to a new generation of scholars. Each volume includes a translator's introduction by Steve G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter E. Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and an index.
Mihoko Suzuki sheds light on a literary tradition that seemingly holds Helen of Troy and her descendants responsible for causing epic conflicts, while it appropriates the woman's perspective as a ...source of insight and poetic power.
The Odyssey's larger plot is composed of a number of distinct genres of myth, all of which are extant in various Near Eastern cultures (Mesopotamian, West Semitic, Egyptian). Unexpectedly, the Near ...Eastern culture with which the Odyssey has the most parallels is the Old Testament. Consideration of how much of the Odyssey focuses on non-heroic episodes - hosts receiving guests, a king disguised as a beggar, recognition scenes between long-separated family members - reaffirms the Odyssey's parallels with the Bible. In particular the book argues that the Odyssey is in a dialogic relationship with Genesis, which features the same three types of myth that comprise the majority of the Odyssey: theoxeny, romance (Joseph in Egypt), and Argonautic myth (Jacob winning Rachel from Laban). The Odyssey also offers intriguing parallels to the Book of Jonah, and Odysseus' treatment by the suitors offers close parallels to the Gospels' depiction of Christ in Jerusalem.
The concept of a New Mythology is a central topic of Early Romantic philosophy. Whereas its most influential delineations in the Älteste Systemprogramm and by Friedrich Schlegel believe a New ...Mythology to be impossible, Schelling takes a more optimistic view. In his Philosophie der Kunst Schelling formulates a theory of mythology which also accomodates a modern mythology. His most important examples of such a New Mythology are Dante’s Commedia and Goethe’s Faust.
The paper reveals the structure, properties and main functions of modern political myth, in addition, it analyzes the relationship between modern and archaic myths. The basis of modern political ...myths is rationalized and expressed in symbolic form mythological archetype. Despite the fact that archaic mythology as an integral system of worldview is rationalized, desacralized and destroyed, mythological archetypes retain their social significance. That is, political myths are the result of rationalization and symbolic interpretation of mythological archetypes. The article describes the main symbols-archetypes being invariably present in political discourse. For example, the hero archetype symbol is used to create heroic political myths. This group of myths is necessary for the formation of the image of a political leader. The representation of a political leader in accordance with the symbol-archetype of the hero significantly increases his capabilities and powers. The symbol-archetype of the Golden age is used to construct the image of the ideal social and political system. This archetype is especially actively exploited in various utopian and revolutionary projects. The symbol-archetype of the Great Mother, also actively used by modern mythology, forms ideas about their native land and country creating a sense of unity and cohesion. Since archetypal symbols retain their social significance, political myths, by reproducing them, perform important social functions. Shaping a special symbolic and semantic reality modern myths perform the main function – meaning making. Modern political myths carry out their functions by acting on the unconscious level, thereby causing certain emotional experiences and pushing the masses to the required actions. Thus, it can be concluded that political myths are an integral component of modern social and political practice.
"Matthias Alexander Castrén’s (1813–1852) Luentoja suomalaisesta mytologiasta (’Lectures on Finnish Mythology’, originally Swedish ’Föreläsningar i finsk mytologi’) is a key work in the research ...history of Finnish mythology. This is the first Finnish translation of it. Despite ’Lectures’ in the label, the work is a coherent book. It makes a systematic approach to ancient Finnish religion on the basis of earlier mythographers, Castrén’s fieldwork among Finnic peoples and the latest European research trends of the first half of the 19th century. Even though Castrén’s Lectures significantly developed Finnish mythography and it served as a standard work for half a century, its significance was largely forgotten when new research paradigms were introduced in the course of the 20th century. The work is an important part of the history of Finnish research in religions, linguistics and ethnography and it also reflects the state of the study of mythology in Europe in the middle of the 19th century. The book is lively written and therefore, it meets the taste of the general public in addition to researchers. This edition includes a concise introduction to Lectures’ historical context, a scientific commentary and exhaustive indexes. M. A. Castrén is renown especially as a linguist and explorer who worked among Siberian peoples but his work was marked also by interest in Finnishness at a time when the idea of a Finnish nation was developing. Lectures was Castrén’s last work. He finished the book in his deathbed, and it was published posthumously in 1853. The translator and editor of the Lectures, Joonas Ahola, PhD, is an expert in Old Norse language and mythology as well as kalevala-meter poetry. The other author of the introduction, Karina Lukin, PhD, is an expert of North Siberian cultures and 19th century expeditions among them. "
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