How philosophers saved myths : allegorical interpretation and classical mythology / Luc Brisson ; translated by Catherine Tihanyi.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Brisson, Luc.

Standardized Title:

Sauver les mythes. English

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mythology, Classical.

Allegory.

Philosophy--History.

Philosophy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (222 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This study explains how the myths of Greece and Rome were transmitted from antiquity to the Renaissance. Luc Brisson argues that philosophy was ironically responsible for saving myth from historical annihilation. Although philosophy was initially critical of myth because it could not be declared true or false and because it was inferior to argumentation, mythology was progressively reincorporated into philosophy through allegorical exegesis. Brisson shows to what degree allegory was employed among philosophers and how it enabled myth to take on a number of different interpretive systems throughout the centuries: moral, physical, psychological, political, and even metaphysical. How Philosophers Saved Myths also describes how, during the first years of the modern era, allegory followed a more religious path, which was to assume a larger role in Neoplatonism. Ultimately, Brisson explains how this embrace of myth was carried forward by Byzantine thinkers and artists throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance; after the triumph of Chistianity, Brisson argues, myths no longer had to agree with just history and philosophy but the dogmas of the Church as well.

Contents:

Muthos and philosophia

Plato's attitude toward myth

Aristotle and the beginnings of allegorical exegesis

Stoics, Epicureans, and the New Academy

Pythagoreanism and Platonism

The Neoplatonic Athens school

Byzantium and the pagan myths

The Western Middle Ages

The Renaissance.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 167-199) and index.

ISBN:

9786611959234

9781281959232

1281959235

9780226075389

0226075389

OCLC:

309340853