Rationalizing myth in antiquity / Greta Hawes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hawes, Greta, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Greek literature--History and criticism.

Greek literature.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

viii, 279 pages ; 23 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2014.

Summary:

The Greek myths are characteristically fabulous; they are full of monsters, metamorphoses, and the supernatural. However, they could be told in other ways as well. This volume charts ancient dissatisfaction with the excesses of myth, and the various attempts to cut these stories down to size by explaining them as misunderstood accounts of actual events. In the hands of ancient rationalizers, the hybrid forms of the Centaurs become early horse-riders seen from a distance; the Minotaur the result of an illicit liaison, not an interspecies love affair; and Cerberus, nothing more than a notorious snake with a lethal bite. Such approaches form an indigenous mode of ancient myth criticism, and show the Greeks grappling with the value and utility of their own narrative traditions. Rationalizing interpretations offer an insight into the practical difficulties inherent in distinguishing myth from history in ancient Greece, and indeed the fragmented nature of myth itself as a conceptual entity. By focusing on six Greek authors (Palaephatus, Heraclitus, Excerpta Vaticana, Conon, Plutarch, and Pausanias) and tracing the development of rationalistic interpretation from the fourth century BC to the Second Sophistic (first to second centuries AD) and beyond, Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity shows that, far from being marginalized as it has been in the past, rationalization should be understood as a fundamental component of the pluralistic and shifting network of Greek myth as it was experienced in antiquity. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Plaephatus. Peri Apiston 37

2 Heraclitus. Peri Apiston 93

3 Anonymous. Peri Apiston 119

4 Conon. Diegeseis 133

5 Plutarch. Life of Theseus 149

6 Pausanias. Periegesis 175

Appendix I The Date and Authenticity of Palaephatus, Peri Apiston 227

Appendix II Translation of Anonymous, Peri Apiston 239.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [249]-273) and indexes.

ISBN:

9780199672776

0199672776

OCLC:

866619988