Poetry as initiation : the Center for Hellenic Studies symposium on the Derveni papyrus / edited by Ioanna Papadopoulou and Leonard Muellner.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Papadopoulou, Iōanna.

Muellner, Leonard (Leonard Charles)

Center for Hellenic Studies (Washington, D.C.)

Series:

Hellenic studies ; 63.

Hellenic studies ; 63

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Derveni papyrus--Congresses.

Derveni papyrus.

Religion.

Greece--Religion--Congresses.

Greece.

Greek literature--History and criticism--Congresses.

Greek literature.

Genre:

Conference papers and proceedings.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 272 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Washington, D.C. : Center for Hellenic Studies, 2014.

Summary:

The Derveni Papyrus is the oldest known European "book." It was meant to accompany the cremated body in Derveni Tomb A but, by a stroke of luck, did not burn completely. Considered the most important discovery for Greek philology in the twentieth century, the papyrus was found accidentally in 1962 during a public works project in an uninhabited place about 10 km from Thessaloniki, and it is now preserved in the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The papers in Poetry as Initiation discuss a number of open questions: Who was the author of the papyrus? What is the date of the text? What is the significance of burying a book with a corpse? What was the context of the peculiar chthonic ritual described in the text? Who were its performers? What is the relationship of the author and the ritual to the so-called Orphic texts? Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction: Testing our tool : open questions on the Derveni papyrus / Ioanna Papadopoulou

Some desiderata in the study of the Derveni papyrus / Kyriakos Tsantsanoglou

On the rites described and commented upon in the Derveni papyrus, Columns I-VI / Alberto Bernabò

Democritus, Heraclitus, and the dead souls: reconstructing columns I-IV of the Derveni papyrus / Franco Ferrari

Derveni and ritual / Fritz Graf

Divination in the Derveni papyrus / Sarah Iles Johnston

How to learn about souls: the Derveni papyrus and Democritus / Walter Burkert

Unlocking the Orphic doors: interpretation of poetry in the Derveni papryus between pre-Socratics and Alexandrians / Jeffrey Rusten

The Derveni papyrus and the Bacchic-Orphic epistomia / Yannis Z. Tzifopoulos

The Derveni papyrus between the power of spoken language and written practice: pragmatics of initiation in an Orpheus poem and its commentary / Claude Calame

"Riddles over riddles": "mysterious" and "symbolical" (inter)textual strategies: the problem of language in the Derveni papyrus / Anton Bierl

Reading the authorial strategies in the Derveni papyrus / Evina Sistakou

The Orphic poem of the Derveni papyrus / David Sider

The garland of Hippolytus / Richard Hunter.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780674726765

0674726766

OCLC:

840460710