Myth and History in Ancient Greece

The Symbolic Creation of a Colony

By:

Claude Calame

Format:

Hardback

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Description

Surely the ancient Greeks would have been baffled to see what we consider their "mythology." Here, Claude Calame mounts a powerful critique of modern-day misconceptions on this front and the lax methodology that has allowed them to prevail. He argues that the Greeks viewed their abundance of narratives not as a single mythology but as an "archaeology." They speculated symbolically on key historical events so that a community of believing citizens could access them efficiently, through ritual means. Central to the book is Calame's rigorous and fruitful analysis of various accounts of the foundation of that most "mythical" of the Greek colonies--Cyrene, in eastern Libya. Calame opens with a magisterial historical survey demonstrating today's misapplication of the terms "myth" and "mythology." Next, he examines the Greeks' symbolic discourse to show that these modern concepts arose much later than commonly believed. Having established this interpretive framework, Calame undertakes a comparative analysis of six accounts of Cyrene's foundation: three by Pindar and one each by Herodotus (in two different versions), Callimachus, and Apollonius of Rhodes.We see how the underlying narrative was shaped in each into a poetically sophisticated, distinctive form by the respective medium, a particular poetical genre, and the specific socio-historical circumstances. Calame concludes by arguing in favor of the Greeks' symbolic approach to the past and by examining the relation of mythos to poetry and music.

Author Biography:

Claude Calame is Directeur d'etudes at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and Professor of Greek Language and Literature at the University of Lausanne. Several of his books have appeared in English translation, including "The Poetics of Eros in Ancient Greece" (Princeton), "Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece", and "The Craft of Poetic Speech in Ancient Greece". Daniel W. Berman is Assistant Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University.

Release date NZ

July 22nd, 2003

Author

Claude Calame

Audiences

Professional & Vocational
Tertiary Education (US: College)

Contributor

Translated by Daniel W. Berman

Illustrations

1 table.

Pages

192

Dimensions

152x229x12

ISBN-13

9780691114583

Product ID

3855941

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