Greek Myth

With Empedocles, the qualities of a creative religious, mytho-poetic imagination fluent in Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, and Parmenides allies itself with a rational mind keenly interested in understanding the natural world.:
The first condition for an understanding of Empedocles is to banish the notion of a gulf between religious beliefs and scientific views. His work is a whole, in which religion, poetry, and philosophy are indissolubly united. His imagination is constructive, gathering elements from every available quarter-Hesiodic and Ionian cosmogony, Parmenidean rationalism, Orphic mysticism, poetic legend, the experience of a physician, a poet’s sensuous response to the sights and sounds of mature, and the fears and hopes of a spirit exiled from heaven for ‘a brief span of life that is not life’- but building all these elements together into a unitary vision of the life of the world and the destiny of the human soul, bound, like the macrocosm, upon the wheel of birth and death (Cornford 122).
To give an idea of how Empedocles articulates the elements of muthos and logos in his system,  eleven fragments have been chosen in an attempt to illustrate the basic aspects of his system with an attention to mythical aspects:

La première pièce de Joanna Laurens, The Three Birds, (2000) propose une révision dramatique du mythe grec de Philomèle qui s’inscrit en contrepoint de la fable telle qu’elle est relatée dans les Métamorphoses d’Ovide. Le rapport à la langue et à la figure du barbare, paradigme de l’Autre, engage une réflexion sur la question des minorités, la voix de l’étranger et l’idée d’une réversibilité des postures. Barbarismes, irrégularités syntaxiques, « babélisation » font ici violence au langage ainsi qu’aux différentes langues parlées dans la pièce qui s’altèrent et se barbarisent à l’image des personnages, incarnant ainsi dans la chair du verbe la mutilation de la langue qui fait la matière cruelle du mythe. Au cœur de la pièce, elle-même réécriture d’une autre pièce – celle, perdue, du Térée de Sophocle – on retrouve en effet l’écriture d’une autre scène – celle, tabou, du viol et de l’amputation de la langue de Philomèle – qui, à défaut de pouvoir se dire, vient s’écrire sur la tapisserie que brode la jeune fille à l’attention de sa sœur pour révéler le crime étouffé par les mensonges en cascades de Térée en même temps qu’elle se reflète dans la trituration du langage. Cet article s’intéressera donc aux enjeux de la réécriture en tant que mise en place d’une alternative fondamentale à partir d’une perspective neuve – celle du barbare amoureux, ou plutôt de la barbarie de l’amour impossible – qui se reflète dans le motif intradiégétique de l’activité de tissage en tant qu’écriture de « l’Autre » (réécriture par l’Autre, la femme, de l’autre scène ou de l’autre pièce, qui ne peut être dite). Avec la duplicité intrinsèque du langage et l’exploration de son potentiel de transformation, nous verrons dès lors comment l’altérité se donne plutôt à voir comme altération, voire aliénation, jusqu’au creux de la langue où elle prend naissance pour la faire délirer (Deleuze). Le langage de la pièce reflète ainsi la façon dont l’humain vient faire trace dans la langue du barbare et montre comment, par-delà l’humanisation du Thrace, la barbarie vient à son tour réinvestir l’humain et marquer de son empreinte l’acte et le langage d’amour devenus viols. En déroulant à l’extrême le fil ténu qui sépare humanité et barbarie, les expérimentations poétiques de Laurens, où le langage et « l’autre » du langage se rencontrent dans leurs contradictions-mêmes, permettent ainsi de renouveler le sens du mythe grec autant que le langage dramatique sur la scène théâtrale à l’aube du vingt-et-unième siècle.

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Joanna Laurens’ first play The Three Birds (2000) is a retelling of the Greek myth of Philomela in which language undergoes a poetic treatment unprecedented on the contemporary British stage. Mirroring and enacting the characters’ evolution from innocence to barbarism, language is distorted and altered to an extreme through a creative process involving word coinage (i.e. barbarisms), syntactic irregularities, and ‘babelisation,’ thus bringing out and performing the violence of the myth. Departing from Ovid’s poem which is itself a reworking of the original fable, as well as from the feminist takes on the story during the second half of the twentieth century, Laurens’ dramatic writing offers a new approach to the language and figure of the Barbarian, a traditional paradigm of the Other. She addresses such issues as the oppression of minorities, the voice of the stranger, and the reversibility of ethical positions by providing a reflection on the intrinsic duplicity of language itself and by exploring its potential for ‘metamorphosis’ and manipulation, thus presenting otherness as alienation. At the core of the play, which is a rewriting of another (lost) tragedy – that of Sophocles’ Tereus –, are Tereus’ lies, which are a rewriting of another (taboo) story – that of Philomela’s rape and amputated tongue. Although it can’t be verbally expressed by the young woman, this traumatic episode is nonetheless revealed through a tapestry she weaves for her sister Procné to denounce the crime of the lying husband, the needlework compensating her lost voice. This article thus looks at the issues at stake in Laurens’ rewriting, which can be read as the Other of the Greek myth and its famous feminist interpretations. Not only does her play propose an alternative which stems from an unusual, profoundly humane perspective – the suffering of a man whose love is thwarted – but this reversal is also mirrored in the intradiegetic motif of the tapestry as a writing of the Other (the scene behind the scenes, unheard of) by the Other (the abused, silenced woman). I propose to study how the Other comes to be inscribed at the core of language where it takes shape, rendering it delirious (Deleuze), as humanity can be traced in the Barbarian and barbarism can in turn affect humanity beyond the figure of the Thracian. As the act and language of love are turned into linguistic abuse and physical rape, Laurens’ formal experimentations, where language and the Other of language meet at the crossroad of their own contradictions, allow for a renewal in the meaning of the Greek myth as well as in the dramatic language on the British stage at the start of the twenty-first century.

This paper examines the Dyonisian and Orphic symbolic and ritual iconographical aspects of a Centuripe vase from Southern Italy from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Measuring 70.5 by 34.5 centimeters, the basic form of the vase is that of a bell krater without handles set on a high foot and surmounted by a domed lid ending in an egg-shaped finial (Richter 188), formed of separate sections that have been assembled in production. The vase has been assembled from broken pieces, showing little surface damage. In order to facilitate description and analysis, two very similar Centuripe vases, one in New York, the other in Princeton, are  referred to.
A.Description of the iconographic and decorative aspects of the vase, which depicts a scene of three woman and a man in a ritual scene. One woman holds a thyrsus and tympaneum and there is a tripod.
B. Analysis of the elements in relation to the history and development of Greek vase art. Mayo has observed that ‘’death, marriage, and the mysteries is a frequent triad in South Italian and Sicilian vase-painting’’ (283). These aspects will be examined, in the context of feminine themes, to see if they can shed light on the imagery and function of the vase.
1. Feminine aspects
2. Marriage aspects
3. Funerary aspects
4. Dyonisian aspects
5. Orphic aspects
C. Interpretation.  Ariadne has often been linked  with Aphrodite (Otto 182-85).  Figure 29 (de Grummond 92)  is a wall painting from Pompeii depicting Dionysus and Ariadne watching a contest between Pan and Eros, aptly illustrating the combination of the worlds of Dionysus and Aphrodite. Figure 30 (Lissarague in Masks 21),  from a fifth century Bell krater, depicting what could be a puberty initiation scene,  illustrates  Dionysus and Ariadne in a ritual context. The Maenad holding the rabbit, a well-known fertility symbol could be an aspect linking Ariadne to Aphrodite. 
The portrait on the Montreal Centuripe vase could serve to indicate that the deceased identified herself with Ariadne, as her features resembles the Ariadne figure on the body. The head can be related to the ascension of Aphrodite in a  role of chthonian goddess (Calinescu in Mayo 143), and possibly related to Ariadne’s divinization after her revival  by Dionysus, where Zeus placed her crown in the heavens (Seyffert 64). As shown in figures 11-14, Centuripe imagery has been related to the Dionysus and Ariadne figures of the frieze of the Villa of Mysteries.

[For recent work, such as the myths of Archias and Actaeon, Leucocomas and Euxynthetus, Meletus and Timagoras, and Nissus and Euryalus, please see my Academia page, https://independent.academia.edu/AndrewCalimach ]

The Greek myths of love between gods or heroes and youths, including Zeus and Ganymede, Poseidon and Pelops, Laius and Chrysippus, Apollo and Hyacinth, Hercules and Hylas, Achilles and Patroclus, Narcissus, and Orpheus.

The myths are restored and retold from ancient fragments. Each story has a complete bibliography, and from the many illustrations of Greek vase paintings and sculptures we see how the Greeks imagined these characters and these situations.

希腊神话中的神和男孩，还是英雄和男孩，包括宙斯和木卫三，海神和贝洛布思，拉伊俄斯和克吕西波，阿波罗和风信子，大力士和海拉斯，阿喀琉斯和帕特罗克洛斯，水仙，奥菲斯之间的同性之爱。

Erede di una terribile colpa – l’incesto del padre-fratello Edipo – Antigone è colei che ama eroicamente e che moltiplica i suoi volti nelle riscritture del mito, mostrandosi ora donna innamorata e adolescente inquieta, ora eroina della giustizia, ribelle e martire della ragion di Stato. Pensiamo ad Antigone come alla figlia pietosa e alla sorella devota delle tragedie di Sofocle, ma la ritroviamo soprattutto nelle vesti di paladina della libertà individuale contro tutte le forme di sopraffazione da parte di chi sta al potere. Da Stazio ad Alfieri, da Hölderlin a Hegel, da Brecht ai nostri giorni, Antigone non cessa di porre interrogativi di natura etica, filosofica, politico-giuridica. D’Annunzio invoca la sua presenza in una lirica di Alcyone chiamandola «Antigone dall’anima di luce», ed è così che la immaginiamo nel continuo rinnovarsi del suo destino. Chi s’innamora di Antigone, diceva il poeta Shelley, non sarà mai soddisfatto di nessun altro legame mortale.

The attached is the abstract, handout and bibliography for my presentation at the Classical Association conference, 10-13 April 2015, Bristol University
Panel: Homer II (Wills Memorial Building) 1 p.m., Sunday 12th April
Title: “Procopius' sense of land and seascapes in Homer's Odyssey and his symbolism of Athena?”

Abstract
The myth of the cicadas (Phaedrus, 259b5ff.) and that of the dying swans (Phaedo, 84e3ff.) occupy a special position among Plato’s myths, in that they are entirely the author���s invention, as scholars have often argued. However, both myths clearly draw on a rich poetic tradition that is already well-established in archaic epic. At the same time, both myths incorporate zoological details into their fabric. By comparing Plato’s myths both with their poetic models and with Aristotle’s zoology, I show how Plato’s cicadas and swans reveal a careful blend of tradition and ‘science’. Plato created a new hybrid, which can be jokingly christened ‘ornitheology’ and ‘entomythology’.

In archaic and classical iconography, eminent figures, such as the Olympian gods, are often represented seated on thrones. This symbol of power, however, is also regularly used by ancient authors and artists as an allegory of punishment associated to a hybris committed towards the gods –Theseus and Pirithoos on the thrones of oblivion, Hera on the golden throne. This theme alludes to the destiny of those who do not respect the laws and rules established by official authorities (divine or human).
The present article aims at studying the transformation of a typical symbol of power to an image of suffering and torture as well as determining the pictorial elements that enabled the distinction between the two themes in space (Greece and South Italy) and time (from the sixth to the fourth centuries B.C.).

RESUME
Le motif de la figure assise apparaît souvent dans l’iconographie de personnages éminents, tels les Olympiens, faisant référence à leur pouvoir. Néanmoins, ce même motif est parfois utilisé par les auteurs et les artistes antiques pour évoquer des scènes de supplice liées au châtiment d’une démesure envers les dieux –Thésée et Pirithoos sur les sièges de l’oubli, Héra sur le trône d’or– faisant allusion de façon allégorique au sort réservé aux personnes qui ne respectent pas les lois et les règles établies par la hiérarchie officielle (divine ou humaine).
Le présent article étudie la transformation d’un thème typique de pouvoir en scène de châtiment et tâche de déterminer les conditions qui imposaient la diffusion de l’un ou de l’autre motif dans l’espace (Grèce et Italie du Sud) et dans le temps (du VIe au IVe siècle av. J.-C.).

La proposition consiste à rechercher les catégories indiquées dans le cadre de conditions déterminées d’énonciation. Il s’agit de réfléchir autour de la notion d’agent en considérant deux figures singulières : le héros tragique et le citoyen démocratique, dont les caractères nous conduisent à la situation de l’Athènes du Ve siècle. En conséquence, le problème de la volonté et la constitution d’une notion d’agent responsable seront analysés à partir de l’intersection entre le domaine du discours tragique et le domaine de l’activité politique. Dans la conjonction de ces deux domaines, le problème crucial réside en la décision comme un processus subjectif. Notre idée centrale est que la figure du héros tragique évoque, avec ambiguïté, une antithèse politique mais aussi une métaphore du citoyen démocratique. Le héros tragique est une antithèse du citoyen démocratique parce que celui-ci prend uniquement des décisions comme partie d’une organisation collective, tandis que celui-là se présente en général sous une forme tyrannique. Mais le héros tragique est aussi métaphore du citoyen démocratique dans la mesure dans laquelle le processus subjectif réalisé par le héros opère comme recours de pensée des facteurs impliqués dans la prise de décision des citoyens réunis dans l’assemblée athénienne.

I will present this paper at the annual meeting of the Northern New England Philosophical Association on November 3, 2017 at Stonehill College.

This essay investigates Plato's use of " hope " (ἐλπίς, ἐλπίζειν) in the Phaedo. I have shown elsewhere that in the Philebus, Plato devotes significant attention to hope, attributing to it a number of features. Two of those will also emerge from my explanation of hope in the Phaedo: (1) That it is a pleasure of the soul, and (2) that it anticipates pleasure with certitude, unlike the ambiguity of mere expectation: προσδοκία—a reversal of the modern meaning of these words. I will also illustrate that hope is potentially inexhaustible even if it is limited by the capabilities of reason. Furthermore, my interpretation of the " True Earth " afterlife myth reveals that the dialogue engenders hope in two distinct, but closely related ways: theologically and intellectually. My explanation of the former aids in demarcating the pagan foundations for Christian theological hope, while my account of the latter contributes to an underrepresented area of Plato scholarship, and perhaps of modern philosophy broadly construed.

Слово «хтонь» сразу встало в ряд с другими выразительными современными словами – например, с «хренью», что обеспечило ему дополнительную популярность. Вообще слова, начинающиеся на «х», для носителя русского языкового сознания звучат колоритно и смачно. И пошла «хтонь» в народ – разумеется, в народ преимущественно столичный, гуманитарный, приуниверситетский. Заметно, что красочные термины «хтон», «хтоничность», «хтоника», «хтонизм» понимаются весьма широко, даже расплывчато. Они далеко ушли от буквального, «почвенного», смысла соответствующего греческого корня. В последние десятилетия увлечённость всякого рода «структурами» да «конструктами» настолько въелась в сам способ мышления продвинутых учёных-гуманитариев, что они готовы замечать сконструиро-ванность, конвенциональность, нарочитость, придуманность, социокультурную обусловленность даже там, где налицо естественность – где не «культура», а «природа».  В общем, пора писать диссертации. Вот актуальная тема: что-нибудь не слишком приземлённое о теллурической хтоничности андерграунда (на примере работ Николая Гумилёва и Николая Эрдмана). Монографию выпустить в издательстве «Терра». Научным руководителем мог бы стать философ С. Н. Земляной. Ведущая организация – факультет почвоведения. Защита может состояться на географическом факультете.

The theatre of Marina Carr evokes Sophocles' Electra in The Mai (1994), through female characters that pursue a mythical ending. It turns to classical modernity in Marble (2009), when women are unable to coexist with normative models, Trojan territories turn into unknown dreamlands, lasting and immaculate existences, that go beyond earthly life, are pursued, and the protagonists echo Greek heroines. Through a revision of the mythological content of her plays, the question of the crisis or persistence of myths in contemporary Irish society and culture can be addressed successfully: Irish and Greek female myths survive in the plays of Carr, and this technique highlights the relevance of mythology in today's Irish theatre as a strategy to question the role of women in society. On the other hand, this use of myth continues revealing the inability of modern materialist society to substitute the epic life of the individual. Resumen El teatro de Marina Carr evoca la Electra de Sófocles en The Mai (1994), a través de personajes que anhelan un final mitológico. Se convierte en una modernidad clásica en Marble (2009) cuando las mujeres son incapaces de coexistir con modelos normativos, los paisajes troyanos se vuelven territorios-sueño desconocidos, se persiguen vidas duraderas e inmaculadas más allá de la existencia terrenal, y las protagonistas evocan heroínas griegas. A través de una revisión del contenido mitológico de sus obras, la cuestión de la crisis o persistencia de los mitos en la sociedad y cultura irlandesas contemporáneas se puede abordar con éxito: los mitos femeninos griegos e irlandeses sobreviven en las obras de Carr y esta técnica pone de manifiesto la importancia de la mitología en el teatro irlandés actual como una estrategia para cuestionar el papel de la mujer en la sociedad. Por otro lado, este uso de la mitología continúa revelando la imposibilidad de sustituir la sociedad moderna materialista por la vida épica del individuo.

A purpose for this study is to explore creative interventions that can help women on their individuation path, based on personal exploration. This exploration utilizes the Jungian concepts of myth and archetypes, in connection to Jean Shinoda Bolen's work (2014) on archetypes and myths of seven Greek goddesses. The paper applied an existential and transpersonal therapy approach in addition to Carl Jung's psychoanalytic theory as a framework when analysing the artwork. Internal pathways of the self were explored through feminine archetypes of the Greek goddesses, art making and analysis of the artwork. For this arts-based inquiry researcher used Moustakas (1990) design, methodology and applications for heuristic research. Data was collected and analysed over seven weeks as a response to the archetype and it included; active imagination, dialoguing, making art, archetypal reflectivity, writing poetry and a journal about the process. Every week included theoretical and practical exploration of one archetype. Processes included understanding the persona, understanding the duality of each archetype, and a self-exploration of shadow work. Exploration used the sacred power of the feminine, rituals, myths, creativity and its transformative power in the process of becoming whole and to promote ownership of an individual's whole Self, and the balance of self-work and internal process. Findings from this study indicate that this process can help adult woman with: self-awareness and self-discovery, individuation, and feminine identity development.

Summary: Francis Ford Coppola’s film Apocalypse Now counts as one of the best (anti-) war movies ever made, The aim of this article is to show how Classical mythology is employed in this film to represent and understand America’s Vietnam War experience. Not only does Apocalypse Now contain various references to the Odyssey, the storyline itself is structured as a myth. In our article, we show how Coppola and his screenwriter John Milius used Joseph Campbell’s book The Hero With a Thousand Faces and James Frazer’s The Golden Bough to give their film a powerful mythological foundation. These mythological references add depth to the movie and are used to manipulate the audience's expectations. Thus the artistic accomplishment of Apocalypse Now demonstrates the enduring power of myth.

This paper investigates how unsettling projections about women inside the religious imaginary are confined, in order to be contained, to specific areas, which I called “reservation fields”, since they allow their survival, while at the same time keeping them under control by means of cultural policies. My case studies focus upon the projection of both Eve (in the Judeo-Christian cosmogony) and Pandora (in the Hesiodian Greek cosmogony) as problematic women, to say the least. Both of them are traditionally understood as “bad” women, who allow evil in man’s world. Several patterns of cultural selection and manipulation are analyzed and - hopefully to some degree - even dismantled throughout the paper.

https://elibrary.steiner-verlag.de/article/10.25162/hermes-2020-0031

This article addresses the topic of excerpts by focusing on modern excerpting practices used in the analysis of Greek myth. It examines the mythological exemplum about Melanion and Timon from Aristophanes' Lysistrata within the context of Greek myth's flexibility and potential for innovation. After discussing the innovative details of the exempla, I turn to the use of the Melanion excerpt by two prominent classicists, P. Vidal-Naquet and M. Detienne. This leads to some general remarks on the transmission of knowledge regarding mythological lore, as well as on our modern scholarly practices of excerpting passages out of their original context.

Le mythe de l’Atlantide et l’Égypte antique sont étroitement imbriqués si l’on en croit les dires du philosophe Platon. Il est le premier à évoquer le récit d’une île-continent, dont les orgueilleux et puissants habitants furent défaits par les Athéniens et engloutis sous les eaux, en même temps que l’Atlantide, juste après leur cuisant revers militaire. Or si Platon fait abondamment référence à l’Égypte antique, utilisant ses prêtres comme garants de la véracité d’un récit dont il a largement falsifié les faits, il existe bel et bien une source égyptienne, autrement plus ancienne que les textes du philosophe athénien, qui évoque l’histoire d’une île merveilleuse, aux ressources abondantes et riches, propriété d’une divinité, brusquement disparue sous les flots de la Méditerranée. Quelle est la part de véracité dans le récit de Platon et à quel point l’Égypte antique influença-t-elle son récit ?

Amandine Marshall est Docteur en Égyptologie et travaille actuellement à une thèse d’habilitation sur le cheval dans les mythes grecs. C’est en confrontant ses connaissances sur ces deux civilisations ancestrales qu’elle a pu établir l’existence de cette source égyptienne. Son ouvrage remet en perspective l’invention tout aussi mensongère que géniale de Platon, et, à la lueur de ce nouveau document égyptien, pose une autre question : et s’il n’y avait pas eu une mais deux Atlantides ?

There is a popular view, supported by Oxford historian Robin Lane Fox and others, that Alexander the Great's personal motivation and public persona were heavily influenced by the myth of Achilles. However, skeptics of this view raise many legitimate doubts about its historical accuracy.  This article takes a broad look at the evidence linking Alexander the Great to Achilles.

Maciej Paprocki is an academic whose current research examines depictions of political tensions between the families of Zeus and Hyperion in Ancient Greek literature. Since November 2015 he has been a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Distant Worlds Graduate School (Münchner Zentrum für Antike Welten) at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in München. He has a keen interest in ancient Greek political theology, especially in the assignation and transferral of divine powers, rebellions against Zeus and the ontology of Ancient Greek godhood; he has also previously worked on research in both cultural studies (on concepts such as the body politic metaphor in English and American culture) and desert road archaeology (examining the road links between Roman Egypt, oases and neighbouring lands). Between April 2013 and February 2015, Maciej was also a member of the Alientrap Games team, where, as Mythology Consultant, he helped to design their latest project, Apotheon™, a 2D platform action-RPG game done in a black-figure vase art style. He acted as a consultant on the game narrative/story as well as co-designing characters and writing dialogues. This interview with Emma Bridges developed from a presentation which Maciej gave at the colloquium 'Remaking ancient Greek and Roman myths in the twenty-first century' which was held at the Open University's London centre on 7 th July 2016.