The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry

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Cambridge University Press, Mar 30, 2017 - Fiction - 198 pages
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This book offers a new interpretation of ancient Greek sacrifice from a cultural poetic perspective. Through close readings of the Theogony, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, and the Odyssey in conjunction with evidence from material culture, it demonstrates how sacrifice narratives in early Greek hexameter poetry are intimately connected to a mythic-poetic discourse referred to as the 'politics of the belly'. This mythic-poetic discourse presents sacrifice as a site of symbolic conflict between the male stomach and female womb for both mortals and immortals. Ultimately, the book argues that the ritual of sacrifice operates as a cultural mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal ideology not just in early Greek hexameter, but throughout Greek cultural history.
 

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Contents

The Promethean
27
Sacrifice Succession and the Politics of Patriarchy
55
Semiotic Sacrifice and Patriarchal
90
Odysseus Returns to the Fatherland
119
Sacrificial Narrative and the Politics of the Belly
156
Bibliography
173
Index Locorum
193
Copyright

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The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry
Charles H. Stocking
Limited preview - 2017
The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry
Charles H. Stocking
No preview available - 2017

Common terms and phrases

Achilles Agamemnon anger Apatouria Apollo argued Athena Bakker birth Burkert Calypso cave cholos Clay commensal commensal politics conceptual metaphor conflict contest Cronus deference Demeter’s demonstrates described desire for meat Dietler distribution division Eumaeus father female formula gendered genealogy geras gods Greek culture Greek epic Greek hexameter Greek sacrifice Hermes desires Hesiod’s etiology Hesiod’s Theogony Homeric Hymn Homeric poetry honour Hymn Cer Hymn Merc Hymn to Demeter Hymn to Hermes Iapetid Iliad intertextual Ithaka Jay’s Laertes LSCG Maia Maia’s male mênis metaphor Mêtis misrecognize mortals and immortals Muellner mythic Nagy Naiden narrative nostos Nymphs Odysseus Ogygia Olympian origin of sacrifice Pandora Parker paternal patrilineal patrilineal kinship Persephone phrase phratry poetic portion prestige Prometheus and Zeus Prometheus episode Pucci receive reference relations relationship Rhea Rhea’s ritual of sacrifice role social specifically status suggests suitors symbolic Telemachus term Theog Thesmophoria thumos timai timê tradition trick Vernant Zeus δὲ καὶ τε ὡς

About the author (2017)

Charles H. Stocking is an assistant professor in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario. He has published multiple articles on the interaction of ritual, politics, and the body in Greek literature and culture in journals such as Mètis, Arion, and Classical Antiquity. He has received fellowships with the Classics in Contemporary Perspectives Initiative at the University of South Carolina and with the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, and he is currently an associate member with the research group ANHIMA (Anthropologie et histoire des mondes antiques) in Paris.

Bibliographic information

QR code for The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry
TitleThe Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry
AuthorCharles H. Stocking
Editionillustrated
PublisherCambridge University Press, 2017
ISBN1107164265, 9781107164260
Length198 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology
History / Ancient / General
History / Social History
Literary Criticism / General
Poetry / General
  
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