Myths have intrigued scholars throughout history. 'Twentieth Century Mythologies' traces the study of myth over the last century, presenting the key theories of mythology and critiquing traditional ...definitions of myth. The volume presents the work of influential scholars in mythology: the noted Indo-Europeanist Georges Dumezil, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade. 'Twentieth Century Mythologies' is an indispensable resource for scholars of religion and myth and for all those interested in the history of ideas.
Foreword, Professor Robert A. Segal Preface Introduction Part I: Georges Dumézil or Society (1898-1986) Part II: Claude Lévi-Strauss or the Mind (1908- ) Part III: Mircea Eliade or the Sacred (1907-1986) Conclusion: Modern Theories of Myth and the History of Western Thought
Much has been written on Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) and his work on the history of religions, but little attention has been given to Eliade’s idea of a ‘new humanism’ for modern culture. Yet this ...vision, as David Cave argues in this detailed analysis, was the motivating impulse behind much of Eliade’s life and work as a scholar of religion and as a writer.
Because its topic is not so much the study of myth as much as it is theories of myth, this book aims at a rather precise goal: to make a contribution to writing a history of ideas in the twentieth ...century. Twentieth Century Mythologies does this by offering a comparative epistemology to examine the diverse scholarly definitions of, and hypotheses concerning, myth and myths-assembling both theorists and theories into a coherent picture in which the specific place, contributions, as well as shortcomings, of each becomes apparent. The book examines in detail the influential work of three great scholars: the noted Indo-Europeanist Georges Dumézil, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade. Taken together, the scholarly productions of these authors comprise the twentieth-century's body of work, or discourse, on myth(s). First published in France in 1993, and since then translated into Italian (1995) and Romanian (2003), Twentieth Century Mythologies provides an indispensable resource not only for scholars of religion and myth, but also for those interested in both the history and the impact of ideas in the last century.
The Portugal Journal Eliade, Mircea; Ricketts, Mac Linscott
2012, 2010, 2012-02-01
eBook
Detailing a fascinating, hitherto unknown period in the life of one of the twentieth century's preeminent intellectuals, The Portugal Journal was written by Mircea Eliade from 1941–1945, when he ...served as a diplomat in Lisbon. Eliade's work as a theorist of religion has been the chief influence on how religion is understood and studied in contemporary times and he is also increasingly well known as a writer of fiction and drama. Long awaited by readers, The Portugal Journal is the only one of Eliade's journals to be published in its entirety, unedited by its author. Here, Eliade writes frankly, at times about things that he could never bring himself to make public, including his relationship with the Iron Guard, his problems with hypersexuality, his religious beliefs and actions, his admiration for René Guénon, and his sufferings and terrible grief both before and after his wife's death. "With WWII as the historical context, this journal is fascinating to read because Eliade invites the reader into the interior of his troubled mind. The journal is replete with existential pathos, anxiety, loss, fear, danger, suffering, sorrow, and happy moments. Readers will be rewarded with some surprises, without political apologies for being on the wrong side during the war." — Carl Olson, author of The Theology and Philosophy of Eliade: A Search for the Centre Mac Linscott Ricketts is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Louisburg College. He is the translator of a number of Mircea Eliade's works, including Journal I, 1945–1955, Journal IV, 1979–1985, and Autobiography I and II.
Examines the political views implicit in the mythological theories of three of the most widely read popularizers of myth in the twentieth century, C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell.
Une interrogation sur la nature et les pouvoirs de l’art traverse les journaux intimes de Mircea Eliade, Eugène Ionesco, Mihail Sebastian et Nicolae Steinhardt. Cette interrogation remonte aux débats ...littéraires de la Grande Roumanie, contexte historique d’où émergent ces écrivains. A cette période est aussi liée leur pratique du journal intime, genre qui caractérise la ‘jeune génération’, groupement de jeunes acteurs culturels lancé par Eliade. Les réceptions (selon le terme de H. R. Jauss) des œuvres d’art que ces quatre auteurs consignent dans leurs journaux intimes permettent d’illustrer trois pouvoirs de l’art mis en relief par leur jeunesse roumaine et leur cheminement après la guerre. L’art a un pouvoir formateur : il les enseigne en leur ouvrant des mondes présentés par les œuvres. Il a aussi un pouvoir nationaliste car, dans le nouvel état-nation roumain, dans le contexte d’une « littérature mineure », l’art tendait à être politisé et l’état roumain pratiqua une politique nationaliste qui n’épargna pas le domaine des arts. Enfin, l’art a un pouvoir thérapeutique car il permet d’aborder des expériences douloureuses telles que celle de la crise nationaliste roumaine, par des voies indirectes et plus attrayantes. Les quatre journaux intimes, établis à partir de textes publiés en Roumanie et en France, font découvrir quatre cheminements qui se croisent et s’éclairent mutuellement, notamment sur leurs relectures difficiles du passé roumain. Le parcours de Ionesco ressort particulièrement comme celui d’une thérapie par l’art et d’un ‘travail de mémoire’, selon le terme de Ricœur, sur son passé personnel et sur le XXe siècle européen.
Reflections about the nature and powers of art pervade the diaries of Mircea Eliade, Eugène Ionesco, Mihail Sebastian, and Nicolae Steinhardt. These reflections stem from the literary debates in fashion in Greater Romania in which all four authors took part. Their practice of diary keeping also goes back to this period. It especially characterized a group of young intellectuals launched by Eliade called the ‘Young Generation.’ The diary genre lends itself well to a type of study H. R. Jauss has called ‘reception.’ The receptions of art in the four diaries illustrate three powers of art. Art has a formative power: it teaches by opening the receiver to the world proposed by the work of art. Art also has a nationalistic power: as an instrument of national-identity building for the new Romanian nation-state, art did not escape the danger of politicization characteristic of so-called ‘minor literatures,’ a term this dissertation discusses, and the Romanian state practiced nationalist policies with regards to the arts. Lastly, art has a therapeutic power: it can help in coming to terms with painful experiences like that of the Romanian nationalist catastrophe by indirect and more attractive means. The text of the four diaries is here established from fragments published in Romanian and in French publications. The diaries reveal four lives that crossed paths and that shed light on each other and especially on the difficult re-readings of the Romanian past. Ionesco’s diary in particular emerges as an example of a therapy by art and of what Paul Ricœur has called a ‘work of memory,’ about his personal history, that of his generation and of twentieth-century Europe.
Mircea Eliade, the writer and historian of religions, and Ernst Jünger, the hero of the Great War, novelist, and essayist, met in the 1950s and co-edited twelve issues of the periodical Antaios. ...Before they met and cooperated, however, and while the German writer knew about Eliade from their common friend, Carl Schmitt, they both dealt with the subject of human sacrifice. Eliade began to do so in the thirties, and his interest in that theme was at least in part an aspect of his political activism on behalf of the Legion of the Archangel Michael, or the Iron Guard, the nationalistic and anti-Semitic movement lead by Corneliu Codreanu. Sacrificial ideology was a central aspect of the Legion's political theories, as well as of the practice of its members. After the Iron Guard was outlawed by its allies, and many of its members had been killed, and while the Romanian regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu was still fighting alongside the National Socialist regime in the Second World War, Eliade turned to other aspects of sacrificial ideology. In 1939 he wrote the play Iphigenia, celebrating Agamemnon's daughter as a willing victim whose death made the Greek conquest of Troy possible; and as a member of the regime's diplomatic service in Lisbon he published a book in Portuguese on Romanian virtues (1943), in which he presented what he called Two Myths of Romanian Spirituality, extolling his nation's readiness to die through the description of the sacrificial traditions of Master Manole and of the Ewe Lamb (Mioritza). Jünger's attitude to sacrifice ran along lines that were less traditional: possibly already while serving as a Wehrmacht officer, in his pamphlet Der Friede, the German writer attributed sacrificial status to all the victims of the Second World War, soldiers, workmen, and unknowing innocents, and saw their death as the ransom of a peace "without victory or defeat." In this article, the sacrificial ideologies of the two intellectuals are compared in order to reflect upon the complex interplay between traditional religious themes, more or less freely reinterpreted and transformed, political power, and violent conflict, in an age of warfare marked by fascisms and by the terrible massacre some refer to by the name of an ancient Greek sacrificial practice.
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