Reading' Greek Death : To the End of the Classical Period

by: Sourvinou-Inwood, Chr.

Price: 73,00 EURO

1 copy in stock

Reading" Greek death : to the end of the classical period

Author:Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood

Summary:This book offers a series of in-depth studies of some aspects of the beliefs, attitudes, and rituals surrounding death in ancient Greece from the Minoan and Mycenean period to the end of the classical age. Drawing on every kind of available evidence - from literary texts to burial customs, inscriptions, and images in art - the author sheds new light on many key, still essentially problematic, aspects of Greek life, myth, and literature: including the world of the dead in Homer; the perceptions associated with grave monuments and articulated in their images and epigrams; the myths of Charon, Hermes, and the journey of death; and the shifting attitudes towards death in a changing society

Series:
Clarendon paperbacks

xi, 489 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 22 cm

Contents:
I. Reading the Greek Discourse of Death. Reading Ancient Texts
II. Afterlife in the Homeric Poems: Text and Belief. i. Text and Belief. ii. Death and the World of the Dead in Homer. iii. Odyssey 24: The Continuation
iv. Conclusions: Homeric Eschatologies
III. Signs of the Dead: The Grave Monument in Homer and the Archaic Age. i. The Grave Monument in Homer. ii. The Grave Monument in the Archaic Age
IV. Coping with Death: Shifting Attitudes in a Changing World
V. Charon, Hermes, and the Journey of Death. i. Charon and the Journey to Hades in the Fifth Century. ii. Images of Charon on White-Ground Lekythoi: Reassurance and 'Propitiation'. iii. Shifting Attitudes and Eschatological Mythopoeia: The Emergence of Charon and Hermes Chthonios. iv. Other Views on Charon: A Critique
VI. Reading (Death) Otherwise: The Case Study of an Archaic Epigram. i. The First and Second Reading Narratives. ii. The Third Reading Narrative: Reading through Archaic Eyes

Description
The author sheds new light on aspects of the beliefs, attitudes, and rituals surrounding death in ancient Greece from the Minoan and Mycenean period to the end of the classical age. She draws on different types of evidence - from literary texts to burial customs, inscriptions, and images in art - to explore the fragmentary and problematic evidence for the reconstruction of attitudes towards, and the beliefs and practices pertaining to death and the afterlife.
The book is also a sophisticated critique of the methodologies appropriate for interpreting the evidence for ancient beliefs. Insights from athropology and other disciplines help to inform the reconstruction of these beliefs and to minimize the intrustion of culturally determined assumptions which reflect modern thinking rather than ancient realities.

Reading' Greek Death : To the End of the Classical Period

by: Sourvinou-Inwood, Chr.

• ISBN-13: 9780198150695 / 978-0-19-815069-5
• ISBN-03: 0198150695 / 0-19-815069-5
• Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006

Price: 73,00 EURO

1 copy in stock