Introduction. The lexeme “myth” is ordinary for a modern person, but its meaning is a vague circle of definition. The author sets the question — how does modern man understand the myth, how does he use it, and what approaches to studying the manifestations of the mythological are used in modern science. But in order to correctly answer these questions, it is necessary to clarify the concept of “modernity”. According to the author, it is possible to correctly substantiate the concept (...) of modernity by using the method of paradigm analysis by A.G. Dugin. In line with this approach, the concept of “modernity” is conceptually identical to the postmodern paradigm. The purpose of the study is to conduct a revision of modern literature (literature of the postmodern paradigm) devoted to the scientific study of the myth and the manifestations of the mythological in human existence, to analyze it in line with the paradigm approach. Introduce new sources into scientific circulation and, on the basis of a combination of new and existing sources, offer a detailed historiographic review of the literature. Methods. The main method used in this work is the paradigm analysis by A.G. Dugin. In addition to it, a systematic approach and general scientific methods were used — analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, abstraction. Scientific novelty of the research. The main scientific novelty of the study is the use of the method of paradigm analysis in the study of the mythological. In addition, a number of new sources (published in the period from 2020 to 2022) dedicated to the topic of myth are being introduced into scientific circulation. Results. Within the framework of this article, more than 60 works were analyzed and, on their basis, an exhaustive historiographic review of the existing modern literature devoted to the study of myth and manifestations of the mythological in human being was made. Conclusion. Considering the presented literature in line with the paradigm approach, the author explicates the main aspects of the study of the mythological, which are characteristic of this paradigm and suggests further vectors of its development. According to the author, the myth is increasingly integrated into the digital and virtual environment, which actualizes the need to study it already in the mainstream of digital anthropology. The author also puts forward the thesis that digital literacy skills can help reduce the ideological load of the myth, which manifests itself in the digital environment in the form of fake news and other tools of hybrid wars. (shrink)

Discipline and passion: meaning, masochism and mythology in popular medical romancesThis paper is an interpretive analysis of the discourses within popular romance literature, with a particular focus on the genre that includes constructions of the images of nurses and nursing. An historical contrast is made along with examinations of the uses and meanings encompassed within this body of literature, and its messages for women as nurses as it reflectdcreates societal change. Deviations from the formulaic nature of these (...) works are explored. Discipline and passion are the recurring themes evident throughout in juxtapositions of romance and power differentials in the hospital/medical scene. The soft‐core, sado‐masochistic images evident in many titles are explored in a way that raises questions about sexuality, romance, nursing mythology, and the future of this sub‐genre of the popular romance. (shrink)

Accounts of creation in Sanskrit literature include a number of hymns in the R̥gveda principal among which are R̥V 10.72, 10.81–82, 10.90, 10.121, and 10.129. Later accounts appear in the Mānavadhārmaśāstra, the Mahābhārata, and purāṇas. Scholars generally describe these accounts as various, mutually inconsistent myths, or as superseded stages of philosophical thought. Even recent treatments of Indian cosmogony that praise the poetic subtlety and prowess of their composers consider their work as products of individual poetic imagination. Yet, despite the (...) variety of expression in the various accounts, they appear to convey a consistent model of the origin of the world. Moreover, the model of the absolute and the first stages of creation mirror the descriptions of the development of enlightenment in foundational texts of Vedānta and systematic analyses of Yoga. The descriptions of creation may therefore rather be the result of the special insight of enlightened sages than the results of individual imagination. (shrink)

Recently, the government of Zimbabwe unveiled a newly constructed statue of the esteemed spirit medium and liberation icon who intrepidly fought against the British imperialism. The distinguished heroine is passionately known as Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana. The lexical item, ‘Mbuya’ in Shona language literally means grandmother. This study examines the ways in which the spectres of religion, historiography, gender and national politics find expression in often contested state narratives of Mbuya Nehanda and in selected Zimbabwean fictional writings. Foucault’s theorisation of (...) socio-political practices and subjectification as sites of power, together with the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) framework and bell hooks’ feminist thought of ‘talking back’, provide provocative insights about regimes of power that could be more edifying in the interlocking discursive terrain of the African cosmology, frequently disputed archeology of historical memory, socio-political relations, which are noticeable in discourses and gender politics. The study interrogates whether the Nehanda grand narrative is told by politicians as the revolutionary story of all citizens or not. If not, what alternative versions are proffered in selected Yvonne Vera and NoViolet Bulawayo’s literary texts? Arguably, the mythology of Nehanda in the chosen literary texts locates women as agents of revolution thereby generating semantic dissonance in the Zimbabwean context, which is largely considered as land of the Fathers. Contribution: The study situates the Nehanda narrative within contested terrains of national history, gender and religion in Zimbabwe’s transitional politics and literature. It concludes that in Vera and Bulawayo’s writings, the Nehanda narrative is deployed to interject significations of woman (hood) and nation (hood) which seek to marginalise some sections of the society. The dissonances embedded in the Nehanda narrative produce a dialoguing space that’ talks back’ and rebuts single storytelling. (shrink)

Dr Schaffer outlines the development of the mythological school of European Biblical criticism, especially its German origins and its reception in England, and studies the influence of this movement in the work of specific writers: Coleridge Hölderlin, Browning, and George Eliot. The 'higher criticism' treated sacred scripture as literature and as history, as the product of its time, and the highest expression of a developing group consciousness; it challenged current views on the authorship and dating of the Pentateuch and (...) the Gospels, on inspiration, prophecy, and canonicity, and formulated a new apologetics closely linked with the growth of Romantic aesthetics. The importance of this study is that it shows that readings of specific literary texts can intersect with general movements of thought and action through the scrutiny of a clearly defined intellectual discipline, here the higher criticism, which developed as a particular expression of the larger trends in the history of the period. Dr Shaffer throws light on individual works of literature, the formation between England and Germany, and the bases of European Romanticism. (shrink)

This article attempts to establish and examine the context of the two remaining mythological paintings in the Macellum, the central market of Pompeii. Panels of Io and Argos and of Penelope and Odysseus grace the interior walls, and while the identification of the Penelope figure has been the subject of debate, she clearly derives from Greek prototypes of Penelope, both material and theatrical. Indeed, scholars suggest that the Io panel and perhaps the Penelope painting as well are copies of Greek (...) panel paintings created by a fourth-century B.C. artist, but it is argued here that their pairing seems to be a Roman creation and that they were part of a larger narrative program. The paintings are compositional opposites and share the narrative technique of depicting moments of quiet tension; this choice of narrative moment is one that began in the Greek world; particularly during the Hellenistic period, and was developed and enhanced by the Romans. Moreover, this interest in creating tension for the spectator, and in the relationship between viewer and image, is also demonstrated by the inclusion of a spectator figure in the Penelope painting. Although the other paintings do not survive, their subjects are known from a nineteenth-century drawing and from nineteenth-century descriptions, and these too share the same narrative technique. If the lost paintings are copies of Greek originals, then the Macellum may have served as a picture gallery for Pompeii's inhabitants. A careful reading of the Macellum paintings of Greek myths, their juxtaposition and relationship to each other, and their reception in Roman literature and society reveals that the paintings were arranged as a program, a moralizing ensemble, designed to instruct the viewer on the proper behavior of Roman matrons. (shrink)

This article examines the development of the concept of the value chain from the linear to the virtual conception of the chain, through the evolution of the literature from Michael Porter’s writings of the mid 1990s to the theorists of e-business and e-commerce in the later 1990s I argue that Porter’s account employs white metaphors and that writings on the virtual value chain both extend the white metaphors of Porter’s linear chain, and suggest a pronouncedly metaphysical system of thought (...) — one which has correlates in areas of thought, including Renaissance Neo-Platonism, cybernetics and the discourse of cyberspace. I suggest that this offers a model of the advance of metaphor — of its usure, as described by Derrida in his White Mythology — and that this model can be synthesised with the views of Ricoeur about the evolution of metaphor towards symbolism. When we apply these ideas of Derrida and Ricoeur to the development of the White Metaphor of the linear chain towards a progressive symbolism, we can see a correlation between the complex causality inferred as a feature of the virtual chain and the cosmological affinities of Renaissance notions of causation. (shrink)

This article examines the development of the concept of the value chain from the linear to the virtual conception of the chain, through the evolution of the literature from Michael Porter’s writings of the mid 1990s to the theorists of e-business and e-commerce in the later 1990s I argue that Porter’s account employs white metaphors and that writings on the virtual value chain both extend the white metaphors of Porter’s linear chain, and suggest a pronouncedly metaphysical system of thought (...) — one which has correlates in areas of thought, including Renaissance Neo-Platonism, cybernetics and the discourse of cyberspace. I suggest that this offers a model of the advance of metaphor — of its usure, as described by Derrida in his White Mythology — and that this model can be synthesised with the views of Ricoeur about the evolution of metaphor towards symbolism. When we apply these ideas of Derrida and Ricoeur to the development of the White Metaphor of the linear chain towards a progressive symbolism, we can see a correlation between the complex causality inferred as a feature of the virtual chain and the cosmological affinities of Renaissance notions of causation. (shrink)

Literature from the United Kingdom and the United States represents the cultural expression of those peoples' lived experiences. Reading British and American literature may also aid in our understanding of the values, worldview, and ideological underpinnings of western civilization. Therefore, this thesis examines the mythological and religious themes in British and American literature using literary works from both countries. Greek Myth is the source and soil of ancient Greek literature. Ancient Greek and Roman literature is (...) a rich treasure for later generations to understand myths, providing creative materials for later British and American writers. It can be said that myths and religious ideas gave birth to great literary works and some immortal poets. Among them, "_Wuthering Heights_" is the main representative work of 19 th -century literature and occupies an important position in British and American literary history. Based on this, this paper discusses British and American literature's religious and cultural characteristics in "_Wuthering Heights_", mainly from the perspective of environment description and plot shaping. I hope this research can play a role in attracting jade. (shrink)

Melusine the Serpent Goddess in Myth and Literature examines how women were once worshipped as the life force, but later suppressed with the introduction of monotheism and a changing attitude regarding the sexes. It connects the literary conception of the Melusine story to myths and legends of the snake or dragon goddess, from ancient to contemporary times.

We aim to understand how different conceptions of the world coexisted, were created and maintained, and to understand the differences between classical and contemporary mythology in the art context. Are we living in post-mythological times? Is there a pattern or a semblance of structure in both classical mythology and contemporary myths such as the cyborg? Can we stretch the definition of mythology so that it encompasses everything that in some way tries to imbue a sense of order (...) in the chaos of human life? (shrink)

Jamake Highwater is a master storyteller and one of our most visionary writers, hailed as "an eloquent bard, whose words are fire and glory" (Studs Terkel) and "a writer of exceptional vision and power" (Ana"is Nin). Author of more than thirty volumes of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry, Highwater--considered by many to be the intellectual heir of Joseph Campbell--has long been intrigued by how our mythological legacies have served as a foundation of modern civilization. Now, in The Mythology of Transgression, (...) he uses his remarkable narrative powers to offer a personal and extraordinarily far-ranging examination of how people who stand outside of society--by dint of their sexual orientation, physical appearance, ideas, artistic inclinations, or ethnic heritage--often achieve lasting, even profound influence upon the culture at large. Drawing from a stunningly rich variety of sources ranging from the arts and literature to biology, physics, psychology, and anthropology, Highwater looks at his own outsider status--as a gay man, an artist, and an orphaned Native American--in an attempt to explore how mythologies from ancient times to the present have shaped the ways we think about social "abnormality" and alienation. Throughout, he points to a paradox at the center of Western values--the competing notions that the outsider is at once sinful and wise, that in everyday life the transgressor is ostracized, while in our most durable folklore and religious legends, heroes must break the rules to achieve greatness. Focusing in particular on homosexuality as a modern metaphor of transgression, Highwater brilliantly mixes personal anecdotes with wide ranging research, leading us on a tour through the history of social conformity and rejection, citing examples that span from Judeo-Christian-Islamic doctrines of good and evil, to the Navajo Nation's ambivalence toward the nature of sexuality, to Carson McCullers's treatment of physical deformity in the novella Member of the Wedding, to Descartes's theories of dualism. He also pays special attention to the debates currently raging in science regarding the biology of homosexuality and provides an engaging discussion of why we are motivated to seek a genetic basis of sexual orientation in the first place. Jamake Highwater has long been celebrated as a writer uniquely suited to give voice to the social outsider. Often provocative, always fascinating, The Mythology of Transgression is a tour de force of eloquent scholarship, a book that will prompt discussion and debate on the subject for years to come. (shrink)

In Schelling’s Lectures on the Philosophy of Art, he outlines an aesthetic theory of the novel and how it communicates truth, based around his Identitätssystem. In doing so, he understands truth as symbolic, where the symbolic is tautegorical. In his later lectures on mythology he instantiates a new understanding of ontology and mythology as tautegorical, and makes gestures towards how to understand aesthetic forms based on these new accounts. This paper explores how that new aesthetic understanding of truth, (...) ontology, and aesthetics can be used to create a new Schellingian theory of the novel. To explore this, the paper looks at the worldview presented in Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus, arguing that it could be seen as the late Schellingian novel and as such, present a new paradigm for understanding truth as communicated through literature. (shrink)

In a tribute to the intellectual legacy of Peter Fitzpatrick, this article explores the poiesis of modern law, as a constitutive ambivalence distilled in the affinity between law and literature. Reading with Fitzpatrick, the resolution of the contradictions of this law in myth depends, paradoxically, upon its fundamental irresolution. Reflecting upon the profound significance of his revelation of the mythology of modern law and its scholarly reverberations, I consider the constitutive tensions of this law as exemplified in the (...) relation between praxis and poiesis, the operative function of the former dependent upon the creative unfolding of the latter. The alchemy of autopoiesis, by which law boldly proclaims itself law, is made explicit in the eschatology of its archive and the formation of its sovereign subject in negation. Revealing the literary dimensions of this law, the conceit of autonomy is nonetheless subject to the subversive substitutions of the supplement. Pressing yet further, the autopoiesis of law is found to be enfolded within a generative sympoiesis, constituted by the movement between its apposite dimensions. Ultimately, extending Fitzpatrick’s rendering of the irresolution of modern law as decolonial, I explore the possibilities afforded by a reading of the fundamental mutuality of myths, and the decolonial conviviality of poiesis. (shrink)

According to the theory which Julia Kristeva developed moving from Bakhtin’s theory of dialogy (the relationship of words with each other) and called intertextuality in her study dated 1966, no text exists autonomously because every text is in interaction with other text/s either consciously or unconsciously. The function of intertextuality is to determine covered or overt relations between texts, the position of them (receiver/transmitter), in some cases even to search whether the interaction is one-way or two-way and to reveal the (...) traces of the texts in each other. In other words, the texts are analysed layer by layer and the different tastes and colours they embody and which enrich them are discovered. One of the research areas of intertextuality is mythology and religion which are frequently taken as subjects in such studies. Mythology and religion are one of the sources from which almost all the World literature is nourished widely. Generally Turkish literature and specifically Turkish theatre within the World literature, harbour the effects of the myths and various religions intensively. In this context, this study will analyse religious and mythological elements/ allusions in Turgay Nar’s play called Çöplük and will determine how these religious and mythological elements have been changed and transformed, in other words have been deconstructed by the playwright. (shrink)

This book explores feminine archetypes and mythological figures in African and European traditions with an underlying goal of describing the foundations of social status for women. The author provides a rich corpus of mythology and tales to illustrate aspects of female and mother-daughter relationships. Diop analyzes the symbolic aspects of maternity and femininity, describing the social meaning of the matrix, breasts, and breastfeeding. A retrospective of female characters in African literature brings an interesting approach to explore the figures (...) of femininity and maternity in society. After an extensive analysis of African mythology and tales, the author proposes a way to integrate them in the clinical psychotherapy as a projective material. The analysis of clinical cases offers an example of how this material can be used in therapy with women from African descent. (shrink)

Essays on Greek philosophy and literature from Homer and Hesiod to Aristotle. In Logoi and Muthoi, William Wians builds on his earlier volume Logos and Muthos, highlighting the richness and complexity of these terms that were once set firmly in opposition to one another as reason versus myth or rationality versus irrationality. It was once common to think of intellectual history representing a straightforward progression from mythology to rationality. These volumes, however, demonstrate the value of taking the two (...) together, opening up and analyzing a range of interactions, reactions, tensions, and ambiguities arising between literary and philosophical forms of discourse, including philosophical themes in works not ordinarily considered in the canon of Greek philosophical texts. This new volume considers such topics as the pre-philosophical origins of Anaximander’s calendar, the philosophical significance of public performance and claims of poetic inspiration, and the complex role of mythic figures (including perhaps Socrates) in Plato. Taken together, the essays offer new approaches to familiar texts and open up new possibilities for understanding the roles and relationships between muthos and logos in ancient Greek thought. “This is a stellar effort. The essays are all of extremely high quality and interest. The scholarship is rigorous and the content is innovative. The conception of the book is highly original, well-grounded, and well-thought-out. William Wians’s work as a scholar and as an editor has been consistently first-rate, and with this volume he has surpassed himself.” — Rose M. Cherubin, George Mason University. (shrink)

One measure of the validity of [Joseph] Frank's insight is the extent to which other versions of his ideas appear in other contexts: for if "spatial form" refers to something real, it cannot have escaped notice by other readers. One thinks, for example, of Northrop Frye's description of the critic viewing all the elements of the poem as a simultaneous array before him; or of Gaston Bachelard's evocative descriptions of The Poetics of Space. Or Pound's interest in ideographic script; or (...) the frequent critical association of modern literature with impressionist painting. Or Eliot's poet synthesizing Spinoza, the sound of the typewriter, and the smell of cookery into a unified whole. Or—at the root of it all, perhaps—Poe's insistence on the unified effect of the story or poem.1 All of these instances reflect a more or less casual assumption of the basic premise of Frank's essay. More recently another critic, Frank Kermode, has offered an alternative description of this general problem. In The Romantic Image2 he assesses symbolist poetic theory; here the verbal image , autonomous and autotelic, presumably unites meaning and feeling without intervening reflection or discourse: the "image" so hypostatized seems very close to a "spatial" form, and certainly the suppression of discourse, of reflection generally, follows from the disruption of syntax and narrative that results from the impulse toward "spatial" effects. Provisionally, we might say that Joseph Frank's essay is grounded in an essentially formalist conception of the literary work as artifact, and that the striking features of his argument result from an attempt to assimilate extended works to a theory basically lyric in its orientation: as corollary, we must assume that the modern writers he cites had themselves operationally defined the concept in the course of their writing. · 1. Northrop Frye, "Literary Criticism," in The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature, ed. James Thorpe , p.65. See also Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology , p. 21. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas . Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, ed. Ezra Pound . T.S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets," Selected Essays , p. 247. Edgar Allan Poe, review of Twice-Told Tales, in Works, 17 vols., ed. James A. Harrison 11: 104-13.· 2. Frank Kermode, The Romantic Image . William Holtz, professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is currently preparing an edition of an unpublished juvenile manuscript by Charlotte Brontë. (shrink)

Short description: Part A : Philosophy, Literature, and Knowledge – Chapter I : Idealism and the Absolute – A. J. B. Hampton: “Herzen schlagen und doch bleibet die Rede zurück?” Philosophy, poetry, and Hölderlin’s development of language suffi cient to the Absolute – P. Sabot: L’absolu au miroir de la littérature. Versions de l’Hégélianisme’ chez Villiers de l’Isle Adam et chez Mallarmé – P. Gordon: Nietzsche’s Critique of the Kantian Absolute – Chapter II: Philosophy and Style – J.-P. Larthomas: (...) Le cas Kierkegaard (1813-1855) ou l’écriture comme dialectique de l’écoute – S. Hüsch: Style et signifi cation. Intériorité et communication indirecte chez Søren Kierkegaard – A. Milon: La question du style en philosophie: la grammaire non-style – C. Van Lerberghe: La question du style dans la phénoménologie asubjective de Jan Patocka – Chapter III: Poetry and Philosophy – J.-B. Dussert: Martin Heidegger en ses poèmes – C. de Roche: The poem and the monad: On the reception of Leibniz‘ monadology in Paul Celan’s poetics – M. de Jesus Cabral: Entre théâtre et philosophie : notes sur la poétique de Maurice Maeterlinck – Chapter IV : Literature, Philosophy, and (new) Mythology – A. Martinengo: La raison hors de soi. Herméneutique et mythe chez Paul Ricoeur – G. Boggio Marzet Tremoloso: Démythologisation comme acte mythopoïétique: le cas de Jason de Elisabeth Porquerol. – G. Coulter: Jean Baudrillard: The Literary / Poetic Philosopher – Chapter V : Literature and Ethics – J. Azoulai: L’Éthique de Spinoza dans Bouvard et Pécuchet: un vertige philosophique et littéraire – I. Vendrell: Can Literature be Moral Philosophy? A sceptical view on the Ethics of Literary Empathy – F. Picon: Envisager Todorov: Poétique, éthique et humanisme contemporain – Chapter VI : Philosophy and Textuality – E. Lecler: La littérature : la mort de la philosophie – J. A. Gosetti- Ferencei: Writing in Philosophy and the Literature and Philosophy of Writing (Plato, Mann, Blanchot) –W. Cristaudo: Bringing Back Character and Grammar: Freeing Literature from Excessive Reliance on Philosophy and Theory – C. Alfano: Parenthesising Cracks into the Ground of Philosophy: The Textuality of Stanley Cavell’s Philosophical Writing – Part B: Perspectives of a Dialogue between Philosophy and Literature: Philosophical Refl ections in Literary Creation – Chapter VII : Philosophical Dialogue and Literature – A. Baillot: Tieck et Solger, un dialogue philosophicolittéraire – V. Altachina: Le dialogue philosophique chez Diderot et chez Dostoïevski – Chapter XIII : Bergsonien Infl uences in Literature – C. Dewas: Bergson et Katzantzakis. Les limites du langage comme condition d’une métaphysique de la littérature – E. Pesenti Rossi: La philosophie à l’épreuve de la poésie : Bergson et Ungaretti – Chapter IX : Wittgenstein and Literature – G. Valdemarca: La revanche du sens commun : Wittgenstein, Musil et la chute de la certitude – A. Leaker: From the ‘numinous glow’ to ‘gut squalor’: Transcendence and the Ordinary in Wittgenstein and Don DeLillo’s Underworld – A. den Dulk: Wallace and Wittgenstein: Literature as Dialogue Concerning the Real World – Chapter X: Borges and Semprun: Writers and Philosophers – J.-F. Mattéi: Borges et la philosophie – T. Capmartin: Voyage au bout de la représentation dans Fictions: Quelques remarques ménardiennes sur Borges et le stoïcisme – V. Capdevielle- Hounieu: Jorge Semprún et l’hybridation du littéraire et du philosophique : pour une ‘fi ction essayistique’ – Chapter XI : Literary (Mis-) Readings of Philosophy – P. Lasarte: Misreadings of Arthur Schopenhauer in Sin Rumbo by Eugenio Cambaceres – S. Roldan: Qu’est-ce qui est fort comme la mort selon Maupassant? La détermination ultime d’Olivier Vertin vue sous l’angle de Schopenhauer – B. Nickel: L’infl uence de Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) sur la poésie concrète – Chapter XII: The Impact of Philosophy on 20th Century Literature and Poetry – B. Ertugrul: Walter Benjamin et Ingeborg Bachmann entre littérature et philosophie – J. Leclercq / M. Watthee-Delmotte: Michel Henry : pour un langage de la subjectivité. La pensée du roman Le Fils du roi – J. Hobus: “The happiness of the concentration camps”: Reading Imre Kertész’ Novel Fatelessness with Albert Camus’ Concept of the Absurd – S. Frogel: Man without God: Nietzsche, Kafka and Camus Der Herausgeber Sébastian Hüsch, Studium der Philosophie, Geschichte,. (shrink)

The employment of mythological language and imagery by an Epicurean poet - an adherent of a system not only materialist, but overtly hostile to myth and poetry - is highly paradoxical. This apparent contradiction has often been ascribed to a conflict in the poet between reason and intellect, or to a desire to enliven his philosophical material with mythological digressions. This book attempts to provide a more positive assessment of Lucretius' aims and methodology by considering the poet's attitude to myth, (...) and the role which it plays in the De Rerum Natura, against the background of earlier and contemporary views. The author suggests that Lucretius was not only aware of the tension between his two roles as philosopher and poet, but attempted to resolve it by developing his own, Epicurean poetic, together with a bold and innovative theory of the origins and meaning of myth. (shrink)

The postulate of the decisive role of social factors in the formation of a way of life, the creation of a spiritual climate and the general semantic field of culture has long and firmly entered in our literature as universally recognized. At the same time it is worth noting the fact that the prevalence of the use of this category in research works oftencombined with its meaningful blurriness, indistinctness. The point is that the category of "social factors" or "social (...) factors" is a commonplace, abstraction, which in different cultural systems and in different historical situations, present themselves very different from each other phenomena. (shrink)

Fish, S. Georgics of the mind: Bacon's philosophy and the experience of his Essays.--Brett, R. L. Thomas Hobbes.--Watt, I. Realism and the novel.--Tuveson, E. Locke and Sterne.--Kampf, L. Gibbon and Hume.--Frye, N. Blake's case against Locke.--Abrams, M. H. Mechanical and organic psychologies of literary invention.--Ryle, G. Jane Austen and the moralists.--Schneewind, J. B. Moral problems and moral philosophy in the Victorian period.--Donagan, A. Victorian philosophical prose: J. S. Mill and F. H. Bradley.--Pitcher, G. Wittgenstein, nonsense, and Lewis Carroll.--Bolgan, A. C. (...) The philosophy of F. H. Bradley and the mind and art of T. S. Eliot: an introduction.--Davie, D. Yeats, Berkeley, and Romanticism.--Ross, M. L. The mythology of friendship: D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and "The Blind man".--Rosenbaum, S. P. The philosophical realism of Virginia Woolf.--Bibliography (p. 357-360). (shrink)

This article examines a series of Greek myths which establish a structural equivalence between two motifs, stoning and blinding; the two penalties either substitute for one another in alternative versions of a single story, or appear in sequence as repayments in kind. After reviewing other theories concerning the motives behind blinding and lapidation, I argue that both punishments-together with petrifaction and live imprisonment, which frequently figure alongside the other motifs-are directed against individuals whose crimes generate pollution. This miasma affects not (...) only the perpetrator of the deed, but risks spreading to the community at large, and prompts measures aimed at containing the source of the disease. Both blinding and lapidation are designed to cordon off the contaminant by removing him from all visual and tactile contact with other men. But it is not only the nature of the crimes that explains the kinship between the two penalties. I further argue that the attributes Greek thinking assigned to stones, repeatedly characterized as unseeing, mute, immobile, and dry, and symbolic of the condition of the dead, elucidate the connections and clarify the antagonism that myth suggests between lapidation and sight. Stoning, blinding, imprisonment, and petrifaction all consign the criminal to an existence exactly parallel to that of the stone, stripping him of the properties that distinguish the living from the dead, and making him both unseeing and unseen. Three examples drawn from archaic and classical literature provide examples of these interactions between stones, blindness, invisibility, and death: the snake portent sent by Zeus in Book 2 of the Iliad, the Perseus myth, and Hermes' activity in both the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and Aeschylus' Choephoroe. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship of myth with the ancient regime and on the transformation of poetic wisdom into poetic politics. The basic idea of this study claims that the political life in ancient communities was been projected into a mythology, and, in turn, a mythology often legitimizes political life. By reading Plato’s Timaeus and Novalis’ Heinrich von Afterdingen, this study aims to bring out the connection between the ancient and modern political regimes.

On the basis of analysis of Russian and foreign scholars, the work is aimed at studying the specificity of the transformation of antique stories and images, which is the desired model in the art of the 20th century thanks to its fluidity and unlimited variability. Actualization of antique stories and images in the works of German-language writers account for life-changing moments of social life, the periods of losing of constant moral landmarks and the periods of looking for new moral and (...) aesthetic ideals. The analysis of the reception and transformation of mythological stories and images in the contemporary literature proves the conception of its polysemy. The built-in contradiction of myths is realized through the transformation of mythological stories and images in the literary works of contemporary writers and is explained by the individuality of writers and theirs aesthetic aims. On the one side, the absence de facto in German drama of the 20th century of interpretations of the story about Achilles and of the image of Achilles, and numerous variations on the topic of moral strivings of fearless and peccant Ulysses, on the other side, are proving the statements of classic aesthetic that the tragedy is based on the conflict, which is close to lofty and linked with the idea of dignity of the man, which is ready and capable of promoting the views of his own by the real acts that are often lead to suffer and death. According to Aristotle, the sympathy for the character leads to catharsis - the basis of education of real civic-mindedness and humanness. (shrink)

This paper asserts that the dominant mental models of a social system are shaped by the conditions at the time when the society first gains its identity and unity,and that the basic traits of these models are maintained to a great extent throughout that society’s subsequent social evolution. Based on this assumption, some basic traits of the mental models’ characteristics of today’s civilisations are expected to have their origins in the mental models of early human agricultural societies and city-states. Since (...) Mesopotamian myths constitute some of the earliest available records originating from that ancient period, several of these myths are analysed here to examine the roots of some fundamental epistemological assumptions of our contemporary society. (shrink)

Finding true love is a journey of transformation obstructed by numerous psychological obstacles. _Being in Love_ expands the traditional field of psychoanalytic couple therapy, and explores therapeutic methods of working through the obstacles leading to true love. Becoming who we are is an inherently relational journey: we uncover our truest nature and become most authentically real through the difficult and fearful, yet transformative intersubjective crucibles of our intimate relationships. In this book, Judith Pickering draws comparisons between Bion's concept of becoming (...) in O, and being in love. She searches for pathways that lead away from relational confusion towards the discovery of genuine transformational relationships, and works towards finding better ways of relating to one another. This is achieved by encouraging couples to enjoy the actual presence, humanity, otherness and particularity of each other rather than expecting a partner to conform to our own expectations, projections, desires and presuppositions. Pickering draws on clinical material, contemporary psychoanalysis, cultural themes from the worlds of mythology and literature, and a wealth of therapeutic techniques in this fresh approach to couple therapy. _Being in Love_ will therefore interest students and practitioners of psychoanalysis, psychology, and couple therapy, as well as all of those seeking to be more authentic in their relationships. (shrink)

English summary: Courtly mythologies and courtly knowledge orders are the central issues in this volume that brings together contributions from two colloquia held by the International Courtly Literature Society (ICLS).

An ancient and enduring cross-cultural mythology explores what the texts generally perceive as a paradox: the birth of white offspring to black parents, or black offspring to white parents. This mythology in the Hebrew Bible is limited to animal husbandry, but in Indian literature from the third century B.C.E. and Greek and Hebrew literature from the third or fourth century C.E. it was transferred to stories about human beings. These stories originally express a fascination with the (...) dark skin of “Ethiopians” , and a fantasy of white children born to them. But when ideas about human race arise in Europe after the sixteenth century, the stories reverse their color schemes and shift their emphasis to investigations of the paradox of black children born to white parents. In our day, racism is clearly a strong factor in the media fascination with court cases about in vitro fertilization in which black children are born to white parents. This development suggests that the symbolism of black and white was not originally, nor need be now, racist, but that, once racism is current, it is hard to reclaim the nonjudgmental innocence of the earlier texts. Many of these texts explained the paradox of children who differ from their parents in color by invoking the concept of parental impression , which argues that whatever a woman thinks of or sees at the moment of conception influences the physical form of the child. This doctrine, which was known in ancient Israel, in Greece, in ancient India, and in Europe well into the twentieth century, primarily addresses an entirely different obsession—the problem of paternal insecurity—and generally draws heavily on sexist and misogynist attitudes toward women. Yet, when it was appropriated into the narratives of off-color offspring, it offered, in place of the more obvious explanation , an alternative fantasy that softened the culpability of women. So, too, when applied to stories of color-contrasting offspring in European narratives, even after the sixteenth century,the idea of parental impression functioned as a force against racism ; the Lamarckian or Lysenkan idea of the inheritance of acquired characteristics—the privileging of nurture over nature—argues against the belief that one’s racial stock determines who one is. Thus this doctrine, farfetched as it seems to us , dulled the edge of ancient antagonism toward women and modern European antagonism toward the descendants of the “Ethiopians.” A study of the variations of this myth across cultures has much to tell us about the ways in which myths about women and myths about people of dark skin color are transformed under the pressure of later tropes of sexism and racism. (shrink)

These essays reveal a dynamic range of interactions, reactions, tensions, and ambiguities, showing how Greek literary creations impacted and provided the ...

The paper suggests that the birth of an artwork as an open dynamic system can be described through the axiomatics of the theory of metabolic time. Alexander Levich’s theory of metabolic time and Nikolai Kozyrev’s theory of generated time flows, describing universal laws of the birth of the new, allow for the rethinking of the main categories of literature and aesthetics. The paper takes the rhythmic fractal as a natural referential unit of time in literature, as well as (...) the analogue of the generating fluent in arts. The first part of the paper introduces Chekhov’s “depth poetics” through a body of research, addressing the problems of artistic creativity and the genesis of an artistic work as a new integral space–time unit. The second part of the paper brings “depth poetics” into a larger theoretical context: the theory of artistic creativity by Gej and the theory of metabolic time by Alexander Levich. The final part of the paper, “Rhythmic fractals,” draws the conclusion concerning the perspective of studying the wave nature of “generating fluent.” Using Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard as an illustrative example, the rhythmic fractal—“the sound of a burst string”—is considered. In Kozyrev’s formulation, it is the “compression of the flow.” The rhythmic source itself is beyond the limits of the play and can only be found through an in-depth analysis of the neo-mythological structure of the Hamlet–Macbeth code. (shrink)

In this pathbreaking book, which includes a powerful new translation of Hesiod's Works and Days by esteemed translator David Grene, Stephanie Nelson argues that a society's vision of farming contains deep indications about its view of the human place within nature, and our relationship to the divine. She contends that both Hesiod in the Works and Days and Vergil in the Georgics saw farming in this way, and so wrote their poems not only about farming itself, but also about its (...) deeper ethical and religious implications. Hesiod, Nelson argues, saw farming as revealing that man must live by the sweat of his brow, and that good, for human beings, must always be accompanied by hardship. Within this vision justice, competition, cooperation, and the need for labor take their place alongside the uncertainties of the seasons and even of particular lucky and unlucky days to form a meaningful whole within which human life is an integral part. Vergil, Nelson argues, deliberately modeled his poem upon the Works and Days, and did so in order to reveal that his is a very different vision. Hesiod saw the hardship in farming; Vergil sees its violence as well. Farming is for him both our life within nature, and also our battle against her. Against the background of Hesiods poem, which found a single meaning for human life, Vergil thus creates a split vision and suggests that human beings may be radically alienated from both nature and the divine. Nelson argues that both the Georgics and the Works and Days have been misread because scholars have not seen the importance of the connection between the two poems, and because they have not seen that farming is the true concern of both, farming in its deepest and most profoundly unsettling sense. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 161-164 [Access article in PDF] Dakini's Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism. By Judith Simmer-Brown. Boston: Shambhala, 2001. xxv + 404 pp. For more than a century, the dakini of Hindu and Buddhist tantric literature and practice lore has intrigued, fascinated, beguiled, and confounded Western scholars. First described by Austine Waddell in 1895 as "demonical furies" and "she-devils," S.C.Das's ATibetan-English Dictionary, published (...) just shortly afterward, defined mkha' 'gro ma (the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit term dakini ) as "a class, mainly of female sprites, akin to our witches, but not necessarily ugly or deformed." More recently the dakini has been investigated by scholars as diverse as David Snellgrove, Rene Nebesky-Wojkowitz, Nathan Katz, Janet Gyatso, Miranda Shaw, and myself. Snellgrove suggested in his Buddhist Himalaya (1957) that "their [i.e., the dakinis' ] activities are generally so gruesome and obscene as to earn them quite properly the name witch," but he conceded that they entered Tibetan mythology "in a rather more gentle aspect." Even so, this ubiquitous, powerful, and yet ever-elusive figure —or symbol, image, motif, or principle—has remained, it seems, just beyond our reach. In a certain respect, this is exactly as it should be; for the dakini— at least within the systems of the Buddhist tantras—is the symbol of transcendent wisdom itself, direct and unmediated, hovering just outside the reach of all discursive language and reasoning.Today one scholar, Judith Simmer-Brown, has given us a thoughtful, well-informed, and well-researched treatment of the history and functioning of the dakini (which she prefers to refer to as a "symbol" or "principle") that seeks to present a balanced discussion and overview of this feminine principle and steers clear of the essentializing and reductionist pitfalls of either Jungian interpretations or contemporary feminist ones. It is timely that we take a careful look at Simmer-Brown's work, not only because it represents the most complete exploration to date of the dakini in a single volume, but also because this valuable study has just been reprinted in paperback.Though in the preface of her work Simmer-Brown characterizes her methodology as being "perhaps wildly messy," there is clearly both system and method in her [End Page 161] presentation. Her study begins with a careful delineation of what may be called the two extremes or poles of contemporary interpretations of the dakini: the one, influenced by Jungian psychology in which the dakini is seen as Jung's famed "shadow," and the other, influenced by feminist goddess theology, which has served either to see the dakini as a feminine savior or as the source of a critique of Tibetan Buddhism in which this feminine ideal reflects an objectified product of patriarchal fantasy. For Simmer-Brown, both poles of interpretation are inadequate; and in her first chapter, "Gender, Subjectivity, and the Feminine Principle," she argues powerfully and convincingly about why this is the case. Indeed, in many respects, this carefully argued opening chapter is the true centerpiece of the work.With respect to Jungian analysis, while Simmer-Brown sees "some real benefits in employing Jungian ideas in interpreting the dakini, " she notes the skewing and distorting complications introduced by Jung's emphasis on contrasexuality. Ultimately, Simmer-Brown declares, "the pervasiveness of the Jungian paradigm in examination of the dakini emphasizes contrasexuality, the ultimacy of gender imagery, and psychological interpretation. These emphases have precipitated a blizzard of feminist objections, and no wonder. However, that critique may be directed more toward Jungian tenets than toward Tibetan Buddhism, which has not been properly represented in Western interpretation" (17).Simmer-Brown's case is especially well made with regard to the second pole of interpretation. Here she notes that recent studies of the dakini that employ feminist considerations have generally taken two directions. Namely, "one identifies the dakini as a construct of patriarchy drawn by a primarily monastic Buddhism in Tibet into the service of the religious goals of male practitioners only. The second perspective identifies the dakini as a goddess figure in... (shrink)

This book is the first detailed study of the plays of Sophocles through examination of a single ethical principle--the traditional Greek popular moral code of "helping friends and harming enemies." Five of the extant plays are discussed in detail from both a dramatic and an ethical standpoint, and the author concludes that ethical themes are not only integral to each drama, but are subjected to an implicit critique through the tragic consequences to which they give rise. Greek scholars and students (...) of Greek drama and Greek thought will welcome this book, which is presented in such a way as to be accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike. No knowledge of Greek is required. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 415-431 [Access article in PDF] The Humanities at Home with Themselves Mark Bauerlein The Crafty Reader, by Robert Scholes; 272 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002, $24.95. WHEN I STARTED GRADUATE SCHOOL in English in the early Eight ies, a typical thing happened. Those few students with a background in philosophy drifted together, shared influences, and developed a hierarchy of critical works. (...) A few pushed analytic philosophy and pragmatism, but overall Continental theory took first place, especially Derrida. "Structure, Sign, and Play" and "White Mythology," de Man's "Rhetoric of Temporality," Shoshana Felman's "Turning the Screw of Interpretation," and other weighty essays had the status of cutting-edge wisdom, and the hostility deconstruction drew from traditionalists and Marxists in the department only sharpened our commitment. Having no other professional standing, we savored the stigma, the roguishness. It complemented our poverty, and eased our transition from hot-shot undergraduates to first-year, prequalifying Ph.D aspirants. In the evenings, after instructing freshmen in comma splices, we gathered to trade Nietszchean epigrams and mock professors who looked befuddled at the mention of a priori and aporia.Other students found us insufferable, and doubtless we were, but not in a partisan way. We panned each other just as hard as we did the uninformed. This was UCLA, not Yale or Johns Hopkins, and personalities mattered less than arguments. If in discussion I backed a point with [End Page 415] "As Derrida says...," someone always answered, "So what?" We frowned on arguments from authority. Popularizations such as Jonathan Culler's On Deconstruction earned our scorn. They were one step up from Cliff's Notes, packed with servile observations like "Jean Baudrillard wants to take us further, into a world where everything is so textualized that there is no space left for the real." We preferred to understand deconstruction through laborious readings of Being and Time and Beyond Good and Evil, not in watery effusions about textuality or the mechanical pairing of binary oppositions. The latter we placed among the scribes, those well-intentioned professionals canny enough to recognize the broad import of deconstruction, but not acute enough to discern the real meaning of différance or the radical disclosure of the ontic-ontological difference. The genius of philosophy, we thought, lay in plumbing the fundamental habits of cognition, like Hegel breaking down sense certainty and Heidegger questioning the determination of Being as substance. Exegesis of other texts was a lesser activity, though we acknowledged exceptions such as Starobinski's book on Rousseau and Kojève's lectures on The Phenomenology of Spirit.Lower in our rankings were the quasi-Leftist attacks just emerging, such as Frank Lentricchia's Criticism and Social Change, which cast theorists as mandarin functionaries treating interpretation as an apolitical game. They filled the page with spiteful terms like "the mask of pure reason" and righteous declarations like "it is wrong to claim that you are above politics," spurning argument for the rhetoric of the reformer. We diagnosed them as puny reactions to the Reagan Revolution, carried out on the irrelevant ground of literary theory. Philosophically, Lentricchia was a hack, and we rejected the imputation that theory nullified activism and justified the status quo. Not that we thought theory bred activism. We just considered them separate activities, and saw no determinate connection between hermeneutical stance and party affiliation. However, we accepted the elitist charge. How could ambitious academics avoid elitism? It wasn't hard for graduate students struggling on $900 a month to see that populist attitudes didn't suit the tenured Ivy Leaguer. Professors were paid by exclusive institutions to teach poetry, to write letters for the best and brightest, to run recondite journals and jet to prestigious symposia. We wanted to join them, but not with phony expressions of social injustice that targeted theory as the problem.Allied with the political attacks on theory, and esteemed even lower, were critiques of the humanities as a bastion of high culture. Polemics [End Page 416] such as Andrew Ross's No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture treated... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Explaining Away the Greek Gods in IslamJohn WalbridgeOf the angels newly fallen from heaven, Milton tells us:Nor had they yet among the Sons of Eve Got them new Names...Men took... Devils to adore for Deities: Then were they known to men by various Names, And various Idols through the Heathen World.Among the devils worshipped as gods among the ancients were the Olympians:Th’ Ionian Gods, of Javans Issue held Gods, (...) yet confest later then Heav’n and Earth Thir boasted parents; Titan Heavn’s first born With his enormous brood, and birthright seis’d By younger Saturn, he from mightier Jove His own and Rhea’s Son like measure found; So Jove usurping reign’d: these first in Creet And Ida known, thence on the Snowy top Of cold Olympus rul’d the middle Air Thir highest Heav’n; or on the Delphian Cliff, Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds Of Doric Land....Paradise Lost, I: 364–65, 372–75, 508–19 [End Page 389]Milton’s assertion that the Greek gods were demons goes back to the centuries in which those ancient gods slowly yielded to the new and jealous triune God of the Christians. Augustine in The City of God does not deny the reality of the old gods but identifies them as dead heroes or as demons. The power of the old gods was still manifest to the Christians of antiquity; it was their moral worth, not their existence, that was to be challenged.Such an interpretation is not found in Muslim accounts of the Greek gods. For all practical purposes Greek polytheism was entirely dead by the time Islam came onto the scene. Indeed, even Arabian polytheism, though still vigorous when Muhammad began his prophetic career, died out within three decades of the proclamation of Islam. Pious Muslims might be offended by the icons in Christian churches, but the temples of the Greek gods were gone these three centuries or more, their statues broken up and their stones stolen to build churches. The other forms of polytheism with which Islam came into contact—Zoroastrianism (the most important), Buddhism, Hinduism, and gnostic religions like Manichaeism and Harranian Sabianism—could rightly be understood as forms of monotheism (or dualism). Only the occasional idol temple in some out-of-the-way place—the shrine of the god Zun or Zur in Zamindawar in Afghanistan, 1 for example—might illustrate pure idol worship, but such institutions were soon destroyed and posed little intellectual challenge. Thus, by the time highly intellectual forms of Islam came into being in the eighth and ninth centuries, there was no real idol-worshipping paganism to oppose. Despite the uncompromising monotheism of Islam, polytheism aroused little emotion for the generations of Muslims born after the passing of the Prophet’s companions. Shirk, polytheism, went on to have a rich history in Islamic thought, but it was idols of the soul, not idols carved from stone and wood, that stirred the imaginations and fears of serious Muslims.The Muslim contact with Greek polytheism was thus not with living pagans but with literary allusions in Greek philosophical and scientific texts. In late antiquity philosophy had been the last bastion of paganism, a fortress whose outworks may have been stormed perhaps but whose citadel still held out, manned by doughty and commited fighters like Proclus and Simplicius. But the fortress had at last fallen, and even the ancient philosophers had finally been brought to the baptismal font.The fact that they knew little more than the names of Greek gods was another factor preventing Muslim scholars from taking alarm at Greek polytheism. The obvious first question to ask when we examine what Muslims thought of the Greek gods is what they might have known about them. How indeed do we know about Greek religion? Mostly we know mythology from literature: Hesiod, Homer, Greek drama, and manuals of literature and rhetoric. None of [End Page 390] these sources were available to Muslims. The translators were not interested in literature, which they knew resisted translation, so even Homer appears in Arabic sources as a sage, one of a number of authors of wise sayings... (shrink)

Working within a framework of environmental philosophy and environmental ethics, this book describes and postulates alternative understandings of nature in Indian traditions of thought, particularly philosophy. The interest in alternative conceptualizations of nature has gained significance after many thinkers pointed out that attitudes to the environment are determined to a large extent by our presuppositions of nature. This book is particularly timely from that perspective. It begins with a brief description of the concept of nature and a history of the (...) idea of nature in Western thought. This provides readers with a context to the issues around the concept of nature in environmental philosophy, setting a foundation for further discussion about alternate conceptualizations of nature and their significance. In particular, the work covers a wide array of textual and non-textual sources to link and understand nature from classical Indian philosophical perspectives as well as popular understandings in Indian literary texts and cultural practices. Popular issues in environmental philosophy are discussed in detail, such as: What is ‘nature’ in Indian philosophy? How do people perceive nature through landscape and mythological and cultural narratives? In what ways is nature sacred in India? To make the discussion relevant to contemporary readers, the book includes a section on the ecological and ethical implications of some philosophical concepts and critical perspectives on alternate conceptualizations of nature. (shrink)

The notion of double consciousness, as a characterization of black subjectivity, is basic to Ménil’s critique of the alienated “mythologies” of Antillean life and its self-exoticizing literature. Double consciousness renders cultural identity deeply problematic. But it has other, more positive, manifestations, closer to a Bakhtinian idea of dialogism. Thus he praises Césaire’s use of irony as a dual voice. Ménil’s valorization of complexity and ambiguity in literature, against the simple naturalism favoured by the Communist Party but which he (...) insists is not a truly Marxist position, is thus linked to his view of the necessary “doubleness” of Antillean consciousness. Conversely, the simplicity of folklore can offer a basis for cultural identity, but not for good literature. Although Ménil emphasizes the importance of Antilleans reclaiming their history, this is less about discovering one’s roots than providing a dynamic grasp of one’s ever-changing place in a social reality governed by the Marxist dialectic. “Double consciousness” precludes the comforts of fixed identities, but it is a dialectical, not a tragic condition. (shrink)

The notion of double consciousness, as a characterization of black subjectivity, is basic to Ménil’s critique of the alienated “mythologies” of Antillean life and its self-exoticizing literature. Double consciousness renders cultural identity deeply problematic. But it has other, more positive, manifestations, closer to a Bakhtinian idea of dialogism. Thus he praises Césaire’s use of irony as a dual voice. Ménil’s valorization of complexity and ambiguity in literature, against the simple naturalism favoured by the Communist Party but which he (...) insists is not a truly Marxist position, is thus linked to his view of the necessary “doubleness” of Antillean consciousness. Conversely, the simplicity of folklore can offer a basis for cultural identity, but not for good literature. Although Ménil emphasizes the importance of Antilleans reclaiming their history, this is less about discovering one’s roots than providing a dynamic grasp of one’s ever-changing place in a social reality governed by the Marxist dialectic. “Double consciousness” precludes the comforts of fixed identities, but it is a dialectical, not a tragic condition. (shrink)

Wallace-Hadrill's reading of spatial hierarchy does not address the representation of gender in mythological paintings. However, a rough survey indicates that the majority are erotic and/or violent. Erotic depictions common on household items suggest that the Romans were sensitive to this content; the likely use of pattern books in selecting programs for domestic decoration suggests a synoptic awareness of it. This points to the applicability of contemporary theories of representation and power, and Mulvey's model of visual pleasure in narrative film (...) is adapted for this paper. According to Mulvey, film offers two pleasures: scopophilia, which presents the woman as aesthetic-erotic fragments, suggesting but concealing her difference ; sadistic voyeurism, which assumes difference and then investigates, punishes, or forgives it. Both are illustrated in paintings of Ariadne abandoned and rediscovered, and in other paintings which portray either the gaze or erotic violence . While these paintings seem to confirm in relation to gender what the rest of the house says about class and status, some paintings confuse the issue. The male body is often fetishized , and attacked ; gender and role are sometimes deliberately ambiguous . Such transgressions of the boundaries of the male body are not a part of Mulvey's theory, and they suggest the use of gender to complicate as well as confirm the class/status message of the house; two different negotiations of this use are found in the House of the Vettii and the House of the Ara Maxima. One can compare reversals and reassertions of gender, class and status in other evidence, in literature, pantomime and the games. (shrink)