Myth and Religion: The Cultural and Philosophical Significance of the Hero / edited by Nassim Bravo, Eduardo Charpenel, and Gustavo Esparza.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bravo, Nassim, editor.

Charpenel Elorduy, Eduardo Oscar, editor.

Esparza, Gustavo, editor.

Series:

New Research in the History of Western Philosophy ; 12.

Religious Studies, Theology and Philosophy E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

New Research in the History of Western Philosophy ; 12

Religious Studies, Theology and Philosophy E-Books Online, Collection 2026

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Aesthetics & Cultural Theory.

Comparative Religion & Religious Studies.

Criticism & Theory.

Literature and Cultural Studies.

Philosophy.

Religious Studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (350 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2026.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This volume explores two fundamental questions. The first concerns the essence of the hero and the nature of heroic action. The second question has to do with the cultural role of the hero. This is an issue worth discussing, inasmuch as heroes often represent the worldview of a culture. The authors of this anthology contribute from their area of expertise to the analysis of these questions. The volume is divided into four thematic sections—classical studies, philosophical anthropology, philosophy of religion, and myth-criticism—each representing different philosophical approaches from which the figure of the hero can be explored.

Contents:

Front Cover

Half Title

Series Page

Title Page

Copyrights Information

Contents

Acknowledgements

Notes on Contributors

Introduction

Part 1: Classical Studies

1 The Importance of Spirit

1 The Archaic Hero

2 Plato's Criticism

3 The Platonic Hero

4 The Tyrant and Other Anti-heroes

2 Permanent and Absolute Kingship of a Godlike Man in Aristotle's Politics III

1 Virtue as the Correct Standard for Distributing Offices

2 Permanent Kingship of a Godlike Person

3 The Desirability of Absolute and Permanent Kingship

3 Aristotle, Heroic Virtue and Perfect Happiness

1 Honor and Magnanimitas

2 The Perfect Man

3 Phronimos as an Ethical Norm

4 Perfect Happiness and Earthly Immortality

4 Aeneas

1 The Journey as a Pilgrimage

2 The Journey as an Encounter with Destiny: Book VI

Part 2: Philosophical Anthropology

5 The Echoes of Heroes in Hegel's Philosophy

1 The Hero in Hegel's Early Thought-between Hercules and Jesus

2 The Phenomenology of Spirit and Its Revision of Modern Heroism

3 Lectures on Fine Art and the Outlines of the Philosophy of Right: Stabilizing the Hero through the Dynamics of the Modern World

4 The Hero Reloaded: The World Historical Individual

6 The Nietzschean Hero

1 The Figure of the Tragic Greek Hero

2 The Dionysian Tragic Hero

2.1 Madness or Social Liberation?

2.2 Duality of Sex

2.3 The Cyclic Transfiguration of Reality

3 The Dionysian Hero in Nietzsche's Late Philosophy

7 The Author as Hero

Abstract

1 Self-Claimed and Real Differences between Kierkegaard's Authors

2 Kierkegaard's Heterogeneous Production Compared to Schumann's and Pessoa's

3 Kierkegaard's Self-Description as a Divine Accursed Poet

Part 3: Philosophy of Religion

8 We Are Legion

1 Mythological Perspective of the Evangelical View on Demons.

2 The Reformation: Secularization vs. the Enchanted World

3 The Demons of the Old and the New World

4 The Revival of New Demons

5 Satan, the Prince of This World

9 The Christianization of the Greek Hero

1 Myth and Christian Allegory

2 The Hero of Greek Mythology-the Triumph over Death

2.1 Hercules

2.2 Ulysses

2.3 Orpheus

10 From the Forgotten God to the Superhero

1 The Theogony of the God-Hero in Euhemerus of Messene and His Successors

2 Pagan Gods and Heroes "Euhemerized" by Catholic Christianity

2.1 The Demonizing Process of the "God-Heroes"

2.2 The Evangelical Euhemerization of the Nordic Gods

3 Gods and Heroes in Empiricist and Enlightened Euhemerism

4 Romantic Euhemerism in Gods and Heroes

4.1 Historiographic Idealism: Thomas Carlyle's Odin

4.2 Romantic Euhemerism: from Gothic Horror to the American Superhero

Primary Sources

Secondary Literature

Part 4: Myth-Criticism

11 Gilgamesh and the Struggle with Nature

1 The Struggle with Enkidu

2 The Struggle with Humbaba

3 The Struggle with the Bull of Heaven

4 The Struggle with Death

5 The Enduring Struggle with Nature

12 Samson's Fate

1 Samson: Mission, Fall and Redemption-Interpretative Keys

1.1 Samson's Birth and Marriage: Grace and Strength

1.2 Party and Fight: the Riddle and Samson's First Fall

1.3 Last Fall and Samson's Redemption

2 Pedagogy of the Mythical Form: Samson as a Cultural Hero

13 American Vulcan

1 New Mythophors: the Case of American Gods

2 Hephaestus/Vulcan

3 Myth-Sensibility

4 Immigration and Sacrifice

Index of Persons

Index of Subjects

Back Cover.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

90-04-74426-6

9789004744264

OCLC:

1553139479

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004744264 DOI