Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion

by Christopoulos, Menelaos; Meyer, Marion; Levaniouk, Olga; Aguirre, Mercedes; Buxton, Richard; Constantinidou, Soteroula; Dowden, Ken; Edmonds, Radcliffe G.; Gartziou-Tatti, Ariadni; Iakov, Daniel; Karakantza, Efimia D.; Létoublon, Françoise; Maggel, Avgi;

• ISBN13: 9780739138984
• ISBN10: 0739138987
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-25
• Publisher: Lexington Books

Summary

Light and darkness played an important role beyond the division of time in ancient Greek myth and religion; the contributors to Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion consider its function on both the individual and social level as manifested in modes of thought and behavior and expressed in language, beliefs, ritual, and iconography. The book is divided into five parts: color semantics, appearance and concealment, eye sight/insight, being and beyond, and cult. Each subdivision contains a wealth of information for the reader, ranging from detailed explanations of the interplay between lexical categories that denote darkness and light and the effect of blindness on metaphysical matters to the qualities of cultic light. This unique volume will be of interest to readers in fields as diverse as ancient Greek history, metaphysics, and iconography.

Author Biography

Menelaos Christopoulos is associate professor of ancient Greek literature in the Department of Philology at Patras University in Greece. Efimia D. Karakantza is lecturer in ancient Greek literature in the Department of Philology at Parras University. Olga Levaniouk is associate professor of classics at the University of Washington.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Introduction	p. xv
Color Semantics
The Significance (or Insignificance) of Blackness in Mythological Names	p. 3
Dark Skin and Dark Deeds: Danaids and Aigyptioi in a Culture of Light	p. 14
Brightness and Darkness in Pindar's Pythian 3 Aigla-Koronis-Arsinoë and Her Coming of Age	p. 30
S-light Anomaly: Dark Brightness in Euripides' Medea	p. 77
Appearance and Concealment
The Light Imagery of Divine Manifestation in Homer	p. 91
Trojan Night	p. 110
Tithonus and Phaon: Mythical Allegories of Light and Darkness in Sappho's Poetry	p. 121
Erinyes as Creatures of Darkness	p. 133
Journey into Light and Honors in Darkness in Hesiod and Aeschylus	p. 142
Hephaestus in Homer's Epics: God of Fire, God of Life	p. 153
Eye-Sight/Insight
To See or Not to See: Blind People and Blindness in Ancient Greek Myths	p. 167
Blindness as Punishment	p. 181
Being and Beyond
Light and Darkness and Archaic Greek Cosmography	p. 193
Mystic Light and Near-Death Experience	p. 201
Dark-Winged Nyx and Bright-Winged Eros in Aristophanes' "Orphic" Cosmogony: The Birds	p. 207
The Bright Cypress of the "Orphic" Gold Tablets: Direction and Illumination in Myths of the Underworld	p. 221
Cult
Light and Darkness in Dionysiac Rituals as Illustrated on Attic Vase Paintings of the 5th Century BCE	p. 237
Light and Lighting Equipment in the Eleusinian Mysteries: Symbolism and Ritual Use	p. 261
Magic Lamps, Luminous Dreams: Lamps in PGM Recipes	p. 276
Index	p. 295
About the Editors	p. 303
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