A Companion to Greek Mythology

by Dowden, Ken; Livingstone, Niall

• ISBN13: 9781444331844
• ISBN10: 1444331841
• Edition: 1st
• Format: eBook
• Copyright: 2012-04-18
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

A Companion to Greek Mythology presents a series of essays that explore the phenomenon of Greek myth from its origins in shared Indo-European story patterns and the Greeks’ contacts with their Eastern Mediterranean neighbours through its development as a shared language and thought-system for the Greco-Roman world.

• Features essays from a prestigious international team of literary experts
• Includes coverage of Greek myth’s intersection with history, philosophy and religion
• Introduces readers to topics in mythology that are often inaccessible to non-specialists
• Addresses the Hellenistic and Roman periods as well as Archaic and Classical Greece

Author Biography

Ken Dowden is Professor of Classics and Director of the Institute of Archaeology & Antiquity at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Uses of Greek Mythology (1992), European Paganism (2000), and Zeus (2006).

Niall Livingstone is a Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Isocrates’ Busiris (2001) and, with Gideon Nisbet, a forthcoming book on Greek epigrams.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations.

List of Maps.

List of Tables.

Notes on Contributors.

To the Reader.

Acknowledgements.

Glossary.

Abbreviations.

Approaching Myth: Thinking through myth - thinking myth through (Ken Dowden & Niall Livingstone).

Part 1 - Establishing the canon.

1.1 Homer's use of myth (Françoise Létoublon).

1.2 Telling the mythology: from Hesiod to the fifth century (Ken Dowden).

1.3 Orphic mythology (Radcliffe G. Edmonds III).

Part 2 - Myth performed, myth believed.

2.1 Singing myth: Pindar (Ian Rutherford).

2.2 Instructing myth: from Homer to the sophists (Niall Livingstone).

2.3 Acting myth: Athenian drama (Jean Alaux).

2.4 Displaying myth: the visual arts (Susan Woodford).

2.5 Platonic 'myths' (Penelope Murray).

2.6 Myth in history (Alan Griffiths).

Part 3 - New traditions.

3.1 Myth and Hellenic identities (Fritz Graf).

3.2 Names and places: myth in Alexandria (Anatole Mori).

3.3 The myth of Rome (Matthew Fox).

3.4 Displaying myth for Roman eyes (Zahra Newby).

3.5 The myth that saves: mysteries and mysteriosophies (Ken Dowden).

3.6 Myth and death: Roman mythological sarcophagi (Zahra Newby).

3.7 Myth in Christian authors (Fritz Graf).

Part 4 - Older traditions.

4.1 The Indo-European background to Greek mythology (Nicholas J. Allen).

4.2 Near Eastern mythologies (Alasdair Livingstone & Birgit Haskamp).

4.3 Underworlds in Greece and neighbouring cultures (Nanno Marinatos & Nicolas Wyatt).

Part 5 - Interpretation.

5.1 Interpreting images (Susan Woodford).

5.2 The myth of history: the case of Troy (Dieter Hertel).

5.3 Women and myth (Sian Lewis).

5.4 Mythology of the Black Land: Greek myths and Egyptian origins (Ian Rutherford).

5.5 Psychoanalysis: the wellspring of myth? (Richard Armstrong).

5.6 Initiation: the key to myth? (Ken Dowden).

5.7 The semiotics and pragmatics of myth (Claude Calame).

Part 6 - Conspectus.

6.1 A brief history of the study of Greek mythology (Jan N. Bremmer).

Guide to fragmentary and less easily found texts.

Bibliography.

Index of texts discussed.

Index of names.

Index of subjects.