The Craft of Zeus: Myths of Weaving and Fabric

Front Cover
Penn State Press, 2001 - Literary Collections - 226 pages

The fundamental gesture of weaving in The Craft of Zeus is the interlacing of warp and woof described by Plato in The Statesman--an interweaving signifying the union of opposites. From rituals symbolizing--even fabricating--the cohesion of society to those proposed by oracles as a means of propitiating fortune; from the erotic and marital significance of weaving and the woven robe to the use of weaving as a figure for language and the fabric of the text, this lively and lucid book defines the logic of one of the central concepts in Greek and Roman thought--a concept that has persisted, woof and warp crossing again and again, as the fabric of human history has unfolded.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
PEPLOS
9
Epithets Cloaks
53
Nuptial
83
The Prehistory
111
The Metaphor
131
Appendix A Note on Biological Tissue
157
Notes
171
Index
219
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2001)

John Scheid is Director of Study at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris. Jesper Svenbro is a Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Paris.

Bibliographic information