Author: Sarah Iles Johnston
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674185072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Greek myths have long been admired as beautiful, thrilling stories but dismissed as serious objects of belief. For centuries scholars have held that Greek epics, tragedies, and the other compelling works handed down to us obscure the “real” myths that supposedly inspired them. Instead of joining in this pursuit of hidden meanings, Sarah Iles Johnston argues that the very nature of myths as stories—as gripping tales starring vivid characters—enabled them to do their most important work: to create and sustain belief in the gods and heroes who formed the basis of Greek religion. By drawing on work in narratology, sociology, and folklore studies, and by comparing Greek myths not only to the myths of other cultures but also to fairy tales, ghost stories, fantasy works, modern novels, and television series, The Story of Myth reveals the subtle yet powerful ways in which these ancient Greek tales forged enduring bonds between their characters and their audiences, created coherent story-worlds, and made it possible to believe in extraordinary gods. Johnston captures what makes Greek myths distinctively Greek, but simultaneously brings these myths into a broader conversation about how the stories told by all cultures affect our shared view of the cosmos and the creatures who inhabit it.
The Story of Myth
Author: Sarah Iles Johnston
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674185072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Greek myths have long been admired as beautiful, thrilling stories but dismissed as serious objects of belief. For centuries scholars have held that Greek epics, tragedies, and the other compelling works handed down to us obscure the “real” myths that supposedly inspired them. Instead of joining in this pursuit of hidden meanings, Sarah Iles Johnston argues that the very nature of myths as stories—as gripping tales starring vivid characters—enabled them to do their most important work: to create and sustain belief in the gods and heroes who formed the basis of Greek religion. By drawing on work in narratology, sociology, and folklore studies, and by comparing Greek myths not only to the myths of other cultures but also to fairy tales, ghost stories, fantasy works, modern novels, and television series, The Story of Myth reveals the subtle yet powerful ways in which these ancient Greek tales forged enduring bonds between their characters and their audiences, created coherent story-worlds, and made it possible to believe in extraordinary gods. Johnston captures what makes Greek myths distinctively Greek, but simultaneously brings these myths into a broader conversation about how the stories told by all cultures affect our shared view of the cosmos and the creatures who inhabit it.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674185072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 385
Book Description
Greek myths have long been admired as beautiful, thrilling stories but dismissed as serious objects of belief. For centuries scholars have held that Greek epics, tragedies, and the other compelling works handed down to us obscure the “real” myths that supposedly inspired them. Instead of joining in this pursuit of hidden meanings, Sarah Iles Johnston argues that the very nature of myths as stories—as gripping tales starring vivid characters—enabled them to do their most important work: to create and sustain belief in the gods and heroes who formed the basis of Greek religion. By drawing on work in narratology, sociology, and folklore studies, and by comparing Greek myths not only to the myths of other cultures but also to fairy tales, ghost stories, fantasy works, modern novels, and television series, The Story of Myth reveals the subtle yet powerful ways in which these ancient Greek tales forged enduring bonds between their characters and their audiences, created coherent story-worlds, and made it possible to believe in extraordinary gods. Johnston captures what makes Greek myths distinctively Greek, but simultaneously brings these myths into a broader conversation about how the stories told by all cultures affect our shared view of the cosmos and the creatures who inhabit it.
Myth Information
Author: J. Allen Varasdi
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307784150
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
It's common knowledge that Eve gave Adam an apple. Everyone knows that George Washington was the first president of the United States. And when your mother told you not to go swimming right after you ate, you took it as a matter of life and death. But you've been myth-informed by legend, by history . . . even by your mother! The truth is: * Milk chocolate may actually help prevent tooth decay! * If you "eat like a bird," you may eat up to one-half your body weight every single day! * The largest city in America is not New York or Los Angeles, it's Jacksonville, Florida! Now you can face the facts -- on everything from aphrodisiacs to zip codes -- in this alphabetically arranged collection of more than 590 fabulous fallacies and memorable misconceptions. You won't know what you're missing until you've mastered MYTH INFORMATION.
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 0307784150
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 289
Book Description
It's common knowledge that Eve gave Adam an apple. Everyone knows that George Washington was the first president of the United States. And when your mother told you not to go swimming right after you ate, you took it as a matter of life and death. But you've been myth-informed by legend, by history . . . even by your mother! The truth is: * Milk chocolate may actually help prevent tooth decay! * If you "eat like a bird," you may eat up to one-half your body weight every single day! * The largest city in America is not New York or Los Angeles, it's Jacksonville, Florida! Now you can face the facts -- on everything from aphrodisiacs to zip codes -- in this alphabetically arranged collection of more than 590 fabulous fallacies and memorable misconceptions. You won't know what you're missing until you've mastered MYTH INFORMATION.
TechGnosis
Author: Erik Davis
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583949305
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1583949305
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 457
Book Description
TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.
Music, Myth and Story in Medieval and Early Modern Culture
Author: Katherine Butler
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783273712
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
The complex relationship between myths and music is here investigated.
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1783273712
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
The complex relationship between myths and music is here investigated.
Mythologies
Author: Roland Barthes
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809071940
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
"This new edition of MYTHOLOGIES is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic, Roland Barthes's most emblematic work"--
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0809071940
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 296
Book Description
"This new edition of MYTHOLOGIES is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic, Roland Barthes's most emblematic work"--
Myths America Lives By
Author: Richard T. Hughes
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation's promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050800
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 374
Book Description
Six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation's promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of white supremacy, the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others.
Living Myths
Author: J. F. Bierlein
Publisher: Wellspring/Ballantine
ISBN: 0345422074
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Reveals how key myths of the world present timeless truths that enrich our understanding of the world and the role humans play today.
Publisher: Wellspring/Ballantine
ISBN: 0345422074
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Reveals how key myths of the world present timeless truths that enrich our understanding of the world and the role humans play today.
Myth
Author: G. S. Kirk
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520342372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
This book attempts to come to grips with a set of widely ranging but connected problems concerning myths: their relation to folktales on the one hand, to rituals on the other; the validity and scope of the structuralist theory of myth; the range of possible mythical functions; the effects of developed social institutions and literacy; the character and meaning of ancient Near-Eastern myths and their influence on Greece; the special forms taken by Greek myths and their involvement with rational modes of thought; the status of myths as expressions of the unconscious, as allied with dreams, as universal symbols, or as accidents of primarily narrative aims. Almost none of these problems has been convincingly handled, even in a provisional way, up to the present, and this failure has vitiated not only such few general discussions as exist of the nature, meanings and functions of myths but also, in many cases, the detailed assessment of individual myths of different cultures. The need for a coherent treatment of these and related problems, and one that is not concerned simply to propagate a particular universalistic theory, seems undeniable. How far the present book will satisfactorily fill such a need remains to be seen. At least it makes a beginning, even if in doing so it risks the criticism of being neither fish nor fowl. Sociologists and folklorists may find it, from their specialized viewpoints, a little simplistic in places; and a few classical colleagues will not forgive me for straying far beyond Greek myths, even though these can hardly be understood in isolation or solely in the light of studies in cult and ritual. Others may find it less easy than anthropologists, sociologists, historians of thought or students of French and English literature to accept the relevance of Levi-Strauss to some of these matters; but his theory contains the one important new idea in this field since Freud, it is complicated and largely untested, and it demands careful attention from anyone attempting a broad understanding of the subject. The beliefs of Freud and Jung, on the other hand, are a more familiar element in the situation and have given rise to an enormous secondary literature, much of it arbitrary and some of it absurd. The author has tried to isolate the crucial ideas and subject them to a pointed, if too brief, critique; so too with those of Ernst Cassirer.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520342372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
This book attempts to come to grips with a set of widely ranging but connected problems concerning myths: their relation to folktales on the one hand, to rituals on the other; the validity and scope of the structuralist theory of myth; the range of possible mythical functions; the effects of developed social institutions and literacy; the character and meaning of ancient Near-Eastern myths and their influence on Greece; the special forms taken by Greek myths and their involvement with rational modes of thought; the status of myths as expressions of the unconscious, as allied with dreams, as universal symbols, or as accidents of primarily narrative aims. Almost none of these problems has been convincingly handled, even in a provisional way, up to the present, and this failure has vitiated not only such few general discussions as exist of the nature, meanings and functions of myths but also, in many cases, the detailed assessment of individual myths of different cultures. The need for a coherent treatment of these and related problems, and one that is not concerned simply to propagate a particular universalistic theory, seems undeniable. How far the present book will satisfactorily fill such a need remains to be seen. At least it makes a beginning, even if in doing so it risks the criticism of being neither fish nor fowl. Sociologists and folklorists may find it, from their specialized viewpoints, a little simplistic in places; and a few classical colleagues will not forgive me for straying far beyond Greek myths, even though these can hardly be understood in isolation or solely in the light of studies in cult and ritual. Others may find it less easy than anthropologists, sociologists, historians of thought or students of French and English literature to accept the relevance of Levi-Strauss to some of these matters; but his theory contains the one important new idea in this field since Freud, it is complicated and largely untested, and it demands careful attention from anyone attempting a broad understanding of the subject. The beliefs of Freud and Jung, on the other hand, are a more familiar element in the situation and have given rise to an enormous secondary literature, much of it arbitrary and some of it absurd. The author has tried to isolate the crucial ideas and subject them to a pointed, if too brief, critique; so too with those of Ernst Cassirer.
Creatures from Fairy-Tale and Myth
Author: ANDREW. GREENWOOD VALKAUSKAS (ED. FRANKLIN, MICHELLE.)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988051116
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
Creatures from Fairy-Tale and Myth catalogs the most iconic creatures from European fairy-tales and mythology- with original stories, researched lore and evocative artwork.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781988051116
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238
Book Description
Creatures from Fairy-Tale and Myth catalogs the most iconic creatures from European fairy-tales and mythology- with original stories, researched lore and evocative artwork.
D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths
Author: Ingri d'Aulaire
Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1524770647
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
"I doubt I would have grown up to be the writer and artist I became had I not fallen in love with D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven."—R. J. Palacio, author of Wonder Kids can lose themselves in a world of myth and magic while learning important cultural history in this beloved classic collection of Greek mythology. Now updated with a new cover and an afterword featuring never-before-published drawings from the sketchbook of Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire, plus an essay about their life and work and photos from the family achive. In print for over fifty years, D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths has introduced generations to Greek mythology—and continues to enthrall young readers. Here are the greats of ancient Greece—gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters—as freshly described in words and pictures as if they were alive today. No other volume of Greek mythology has inspired as many young readers as this timeless classic. Both adults and children alike will find this book a treasure for years to come.
Publisher: Doubleday Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 1524770647
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 210
Book Description
"I doubt I would have grown up to be the writer and artist I became had I not fallen in love with D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths at the age of seven."—R. J. Palacio, author of Wonder Kids can lose themselves in a world of myth and magic while learning important cultural history in this beloved classic collection of Greek mythology. Now updated with a new cover and an afterword featuring never-before-published drawings from the sketchbook of Ingri and Edgar D'Aulaire, plus an essay about their life and work and photos from the family achive. In print for over fifty years, D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths has introduced generations to Greek mythology—and continues to enthrall young readers. Here are the greats of ancient Greece—gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters—as freshly described in words and pictures as if they were alive today. No other volume of Greek mythology has inspired as many young readers as this timeless classic. Both adults and children alike will find this book a treasure for years to come.