The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and PoetryThis 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. |
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 |
| 173 | |
| 193 | |
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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