Download or read book Arjuna Odysseus written by N. J. Allen and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together the study of the Greek classics and Indology, Arjuna–Odysseus provides a comparative analysis of the shared heritage of the Mahābhārata and early Greek traditions presented in the texts of Homer and Hesiod. Building on the ethnographic theories of Durkheim, Mauss, and Dumont, the volume explores the convergences and rapprochements between the Mahābhārata and the Greek texts. In exploring the networks of similarities between the two epic traditions, it also reformulates the theory of Georges Dumézil regarding Indo-European cultural comparativism. It includes a detailed comparison between journeys undertaken by the two epic heroes – Odysseus and Arjuna – and more generally, it ranges across the philosophical ideas of these cultures, and the epic traditions, metaphors, and archetypes that define the cultural ideology of ancient Greece and India. This book will be useful to scholars and researchers of Indo-European comparativism, social and cultural anthropology, classical literature, Indology, cultural and post-colonial studies, philosophy and religion, as well as to those who love the Indian and Greek epics.
Download or read book Myth and Mythmaking written by Julia Leslie and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays focusing on some of the ways in which myths have been made, and made to function, in the rich cultural history of India from the dawn of history through to the present day.
Download or read book Great Indian Epics written by Udayanath Sahoo and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together a number of seminal studies presented at the International Conference on Great Indian Epics held in February 2019 at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi by scholars from various parts of the world. Each article adds a new dimension to the subject with historical scholarship and critical interpretation, reflecting comprehensiveness, unity, clarity and rightness of perception. This definitive work adds to our knowledge of the epics and their infinite influence. Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Download or read book The Bloomsbury Reader in the Study of Myth written by Jonathan Miles-Watson and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is myth? Why do myths exist? What do myths do? Where are myths going? This reader is organized into 4 parts which explore these questions. Drawing on over 10 years of experience teaching myth in religious studies and anthropology departments in the UK, USA and Continental Europe the editors have brought together key works in the theory of myth. Key features include: - a general introduction to the reader that outlines a comparative and interpretative framework - an introduction contextualizing each part and sub-section - an introduction to each reading by the editors - a companion website that provides discussion questions and further reading suggestions, including primary sources. From functionalism to feminism, nationalism to globalization, and psychoanalysis to spatial analysis, this reader covers the classic and contemporary theories and approaches needed to understand what myth is, why myths exist, what they do, and what the future holds for them.
Download or read book Splitting the Difference written by Wendy Doniger and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-04-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hindu and Greek mythologies teem with stories of women and men who are doubled. This text recounts and compares a range of these. The comparisons show that differences in gender are more significant than differences in culture.
Download or read book A Companion to Greek Mythology written by Ken Dowden and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-03-21 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Fictional 100 written by Lucy Pollard-Gott and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2010 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some of the most influential and interesting people in the world are fictional. Sherlock Holmes, Huck Finn, Pinocchio, Anna Karenina, Genji, and Superman, to name a few, may not have walked the Earth (or flown, in Superman's case), but they certainly stride through our lives. They influence us personally: as childhood friends, catalysts to our dreams, or even fantasy lovers. Peruvian author and presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa, for one, confessed to a lifelong passion for Flaubert's Madame Bovary. Characters can change the world. Witness the impact of Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich, in exposing the conditions of the Soviet Gulag, or Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom, in arousing anti-slavery feeling in America. Words such as quixotic, oedipal, and herculean show how fictional characters permeate our language. This list of the Fictional 100 ranks the most influential fictional persons in world literature and legend, from all time periods and from all over the world, ranging from Shakespeare's Hamlet [1] to Toni Morrison's Beloved [100]. By tracing characters' varied incarnations in literature, art, music, and film, we gain a sense of their shape-shifting potential in the culture at large. Although not of flesh and blood, fictional characters have a life and history of their own. Meet these diverse and fascinating people. From the brash Hercules to the troubled Holden Caulfield, from the menacing plots of Medea to the misguided schemes of Don Quixote, The Fictional 100 runs the gamut of heroes and villains, young and old, saints and sinners. Ponder them, fall in love with them, learn from their stories the varieties of human experience--let them live in you.
Download or read book Wisdom Discourse in the Ancient World written by Sara De Martin and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-10-03 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book moves beyond the debate on ‘wisdom literature’, ongoing in biblical studies, to demonstrate the productivity of ‘wisdom’ as a literary category. Featuring work by scholars of Egyptology, classics, biblical and Near Eastern studies, it offers fresh perspectives on what makes a text ‘wisdom’. This interdisciplinary volume widens the scope of the investigation into ‘wisdom literature’, chronologically, geographically, and methodologically. Readers are given insights into how the label ‘wisdom’ contributes to our understanding of diverse literary forms across time periods and cultural contexts. In the volume’s introduction, the editors consider ‘wisdom’ as a ‘discourse’, shifting the focus from the debate on whether ‘wisdom literature’ is a genre to the properties of the texts, namely exploring what makes a text ‘wisdom’. This offers a methodological backdrop against which the diverse approaches of the single authors productively coexist, showing how different methodologies can be integrated to reframe our conceptions of ancient literary genres. The chapters in this volume examine texts that are the products of different ancient cultures, with several of them bridging diverse cultural, social, and chronological contexts. By sampling how different methodologies interact both within individual interpretative efforts and in wider attempts to understand cross-cultural literary phenomena, this volume also contributes new perspectives to the scholarship on ancient literary genres. Wisdom Discourse in the Ancient World will interest both students and scholars of the ancient Near East, Egyptology, classical studies, biblical studies, and theology and religious studies, particularly those working on wisdom literature in antiquity. It will also appeal to readers with an interest in comparative approaches and genre studies more broadly.
Download or read book The Book of Yudhisthir written by Buddhadeva Bose and published by Orient Blackswan. This book was released on 1986 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Is An Unconventional Interpretation Of The Mahabharata With Yudhisthir As The Hero. It Seeks To Emphasie That The Relevance Of This Epic Extends Beyond Limitations Of Time, And That The Underlying Philosophy Of The Classic Can Be Explored, Again And Again, To Find New Truths Emerging Each Time.
Download or read book The Homeric Doloneia written by Christos C. Tsagalis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Doloneia is the most controversial book of the Iliad, its authenticity having been doubted since antiquity. Modern scholars are divided between those who regard it as a major interpolation by a later poet who was trained in the technique of epic composition and those who see it as the earliest manifestation of the very ancient theme of lochos. However, the first claim assumes the stylistic homogeneity of book 10, while the second sweeps out dictional and thematic difficulties by attributing them to the theme of ambush that is weakly represented in the extant corpus of archaic Greek epic. By applying sophisticated interpretive tools such as intratextual association, intertextual allusion, and oral neoanalysis, this book maintains that Iliad 10 is thematically consonant with the rest of the Iliad and that it has evolved from an earlier Iliadic version after the addition of the Rhesus episode, which did not circulate as an independent composition but formed part of lost oral epic poetry with cyclic features that focused on the events after the death of Achilles.
Download or read book Arjuna in the Mahabharata written by Ruth Cecily Katz and published by Motilal Banarsidass. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a work of unusual breadth and depth that will attract readers in religious studies, comparative literature, Sanskrit, Asian studies and humanities in general. The book is a thorough study of the great Indian hero, the Achilles of India, Arjuna, as portrayed in the epic poem Mahabharata, including its world-famous subsection, the Bhagavadgita. Different aspects of Arjuna's Character has been discussed.
Download or read book The Embassy the Ambush and the Ogre written by Roberto Morales-Harley and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2024-08-29 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents a sophisticated and intricate examination of the parallels between Sanskrit and Greco-Roman literature. By means of a philological and literary analysis, Morales-Harley hypothesizes that Greco-Roman literature was known, understood, and recreated in India. Moreover, it is argued that the techniques for adapting epic into theater could have been Greco-Roman influences in India, and that some of the elements adapted within the literary motifs (specifically the motifs of the embassy, the ambush, and the ogre) could have been Greco-Roman borrowings by Sanskrit authors. This book draws on a wide variety of sources, including Iliad, Phoenix, Rhesus and Cyclops (Greco-Roman) as well as Mahābhārata, The Embassy, The Five Nights and The Middle One (Sanskrit). The result is a well-supported argument which presents us with the possibility of cultural exchange between the Greco-Roman world and India – a possibility which, though hypothetical, is worth acknowledging. Due to its comparative nature, this volume will appeal to both Indologists and Classicists, including Mahābhārata scholars, Sanskrit theater scholars, and those interested in comparative work with Sanskrit literature. It brings an original perspective to the field, and provides inspiration for new lines of research.
Download or read book Divine Descent and the Four World Ages in the Mah bh rata or Why Does the K a Avat ra Inaugurate the Worst Yuga written by Simon Brodbeck and published by Cardiff University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-12 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This monograph approaches the Mahābhārata as a single work of literature, and the method is that of close textual study. Key verses are quoted in the original Sanskrit and in English translation. The title problem has been recognised before, but no detailed solution has been forthcoming. The monograph’s objective is to try to articulate a Mahābhārata theology of time. In Chapter 1, the monograph’s argument and synchronic methodology are summarised. In Chapter 2, the cycle of four yugas (world-ages) is outlined and discussed on the basis of the textual evidence. Each yuga is shorter and less moral than the last, and between them they constitute a repeating 12,000-year cycle. In Chapter 3, the Mahābhārata war is shown to be located at the junction between the third and fourth yugas. The idea of God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa descending to improve the world is introduced, and the title question is properly posed: Why does God’s descent as Kṛṣṇa (to make the Mahābhārata war happen) inaugurate the worst yuga? In Chapter 4, the various descents (avatāras, ‘crossings-down’) of God Viṣṇu-Nārāyaṇa are discussed. Also discussed is a theory suggesting that the passage between yugas always requires a divine descent to effect it. The limitations of this theory are described and an alternative sketched. In Chapter 5, two general functions of divine descent are identified: to improve the world morally by killing demons, and to help the personified Earth by reducing the human weight upon her. These two functions are correlated with the two extremities of the four-yuga cycle, between which time oscillates. But the Mahābhārata war is not located at either extremity. Central to the monograph is a survey and discussion of the reasons given for this particular descent. These passages combine the two functions of divine descent, neither of which is entirely appropriate to this moment. It is argued that the descent here represents what happens over the course of the whole cycle. The discussion draws on Vedic literature, touches on gender issues, and shows how the two functions play out in the story of the war. In Chapter 6, the progress of the fourth yuga is tracked through the Mahābhārata’s various characters and then the ancient audience, who would anticipate the start of the next cycle. It is hypothesised that this was to occur through the long-term action of the Mahābhārata, as more and more people would put into practice the teachings presented by Kṛṣṇa in the Bhagavadgītā. The Kṛṣṇa avatāra would thus inaugurate the worst yuga because the seed planted there takes time to ripen. Chapter 7 reflects summarily upon the monograph’s explorations, the theory of divine descent, and the text’s theology of time. By employing a resolutely synchronic methodology the monograph makes a significant contribution on an important and latterly overlooked issue.
Download or read book Time and Chronology in Creation Narratives written by Silvie Kilgallon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-08-31 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the ways in which the origins of time, of the gods, and processes associated with time were conceptualised in antiquity, examining a variety of ancient sources from across the ancient world and addressing issues surrounding the sources themselves. Time is a key framework through which we understand the world around us. Shared structures to measure the passage of time reveal certain cultural and societal values, while time’s less concrete forms are evident across art and literature. This volume examines how the tangible and intangible, direct and complex representations of time are used in ancient sources. The chapters in this book are written by scholars whose work focuses on India, Assyria, Greece, and Rome. Their analyses explore poetic and mythological narratives, philosophical discourse, and representations of the divine, allowing us to see how ideas about time and chronology reveal various cultural understandings of our world. Accessibly written, this volume enables scholars from a variety of disciplines to engage effectively with each chapter. Time and Chronology in Creation Narratives offers a fascinating interdisciplinary collection suitable for scholars working in ancient literature, philosophy, and religion across Classics, Ancient History, Indology, and Near Eastern Studies.
Download or read book Myth and History Close Encounters written by Menelaos Christopoulos and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-06-06 with total page 469 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fluidity of myth and history in antiquity and the ensuing rapidity with which these notions infiltrated and cross-fertilized one another has repeatedly attracted the scholarly interest. The understanding of myth as a phenomenon imbued with social and historical nuances allows for more than one methodological approaches. Within the wider context of interdisciplinary exchange of ideas, the present volume returns to origins, as it traces and registers the association and interaction between myth and history in various literary genres in Greek and Roman antiquity (i.e. an era when the scientific definitions of and distinctions between myth and history had not yet been perceived as such, let alone fully shaped and implemented), providing original ideas, new interpretations and (re)evaluations of key texts and less well-known passages, close readings, and catholic overviews. The twenty-four chapters of this volume expand from Greek epos to lyric poetry, historiography, dramatic poetry and even beyond, to genres of Roman era and late antiquity. It is the editors’ hope that this volume will appeal to students and academic researchers in the areas of classics, social and political history, archaeology, and even social anthropology.
Download or read book The Hero s Journey written by John L. Brown and published by ASCD. This book was released on 1999-07-15 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about hope. It affirms the power of personal and collective responsibility to enact heroic changes in our schools. Through a shared vision, purpose, and inquiry--and using the collective wisdom of myth, legend, and metaphor from around the world--we can find the inspiration and courage to face the challenges inherent in transforming schools into authentic learning organizations. As the heroes of legend leave the safety of their homes to face dragons and serpents in their quest for treasure and enlightenment, so do modern educators face new practices and confront the barriers to change in education. The authors show how heroic educators can triumph in their journey--and achieve excellence for students. Like both Arthurian and Jedi Knights, the Native American hero Black Elk, and Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, heroic educators face six stages on their journey: * innocence lost; * chaos and complexity; * the heroic quest; * gurus and alliances; * trials, tests, and initiations; and * insight and transformation. Finally, the heroic educator returns "home" and begins the journey again, with a renewed vision and an enlarged heart, to create a caring community for learners of all ages. Note: This product listing is for the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) version of the book.
Download or read book The Many Faces of King Gesar written by Matthew T. Kapstein and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2022-01-31 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Tibetan Gesar epic has known countless retellings, translations, and academic studies. The Many Faces of Ling Gesar, presents its historical, cultural, and literary aspects for the first time in a single volume for both general readers and specialists.
