Greek Mythology: Poetics, Pragmatics and Fiction

by Claude Calame , Translated by Janet Lloyd

• ISBN13: 9780521888585
• ISBN10: 0521888581
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-06-22
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Myths are not simple narrative plots. In ancient Greece, as in other traditional societies, these tales existed only in the poetic or artistic forms in which they were set down. To read them from an anthropological point of view means to study their meaning according to their forms of expression - epic recitation, ritual celebration of the victory of an athlete, tragic performance, erudite Alexandrian poetry, antiquarian prose text; in other words, to study the functions of Greek myths in their permanent retelling and reshaping. Falling between social reality and cultural fiction, Greek myths were evolving creations, constantly adapting themselves to new conditions of performance. Using myths such as those of Persephone, Bellerophon, Helen and Teiresias, Claude Calame presents an overview of Greek mythology as a category inseparable from the literature in which so much of it is found. The French edition of this book was first published in 2000.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Narrative and poetic creations

Bellerophon and the pragmatics of epic narrative

Clytemnestra and Orestes at the Pythian games

Io, the Danaids, the outside and tragic inflections

Helen and the purposes of historiography

Tiresias in an Alexandrian hymn

Pausanias and the pantheon of Troezen

Conclusion: virtual realities

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