What do you think?
Rate this book
Greek Mythology: With 63 rare engravings by B. Picart Le Romain
Myths are a way of expressing and seeking answers to tantalizing questions, such as how the world came to be what powers govern it, and how man and other beings were created. Before coming to the explanation of natural phenomena by logic, man used mythical thinking to give answers to the problems that concerned him. Thus, myth is a basic attitude of human consciousness that creates myths out of unintelligent forces, out of the awe of the unknown and the inevitable, out of the desire to fulfill in imagination what cannot be fulfilled in nature, out of the desire to see death overcome by immortal beings. In other words, human consciousness creates myths aspiring to make what is logically impossible possible in an imaginary world. Therefore, the primary source of myth is the responses of consciousness to the unknown, which it seeks to comprehend and in which it wants to act, since only in this way can its existence be fulfilled. Thus, human consciousness constructs a world by composing rational and irrational elements. Even when a knowledge of the laws of nature was born, human consciousness still sought to extend beyond science.
Myth is common to all the peoples of the Earth. But ancient Greek mythology transcended all geographical and temporal boundaries. The gods of Greek mythology, such as Zeus, Athena, or Aphrodite, and the heroic figures, such as Achilles or Odysseus, are known not only in Greece where they were born, or in Europe that was spiritually based on Greek civilization, but also in the far reaches of the world. A first reason that explains this high prominence of Greek mythology is the fact that, through the intervention of the Romans, it initially became known in Europe as early as the Middle Ages, and its high quality set aside the Western national medieval myths.
The Greek myth was cultivated, at least for fourteen centuries, in the lands where it was born by several epic, lyric, and dramatic poets, who made it a carrier of the ideals of the Greek world.
Myth is common to all the peoples of the Earth. But ancient Greek mythology transcended all geographical and temporal boundaries. The gods of Greek mythology, such as Zeus, Athena, or Aphrodite, and the heroic figures, such as Achilles or Odysseus, are known not only in Greece where they were born, or in Europe that was spiritually based on Greek civilization, but also in the far reaches of the world. A first reason that explains this high prominence of Greek mythology is the fact that, through the intervention of the Romans, it initially became known in Europe as early as the Middle Ages, and its high quality set aside the Western national medieval myths.
The Greek myth was cultivated, at least for fourteen centuries, in the lands where it was born by several epic, lyric, and dramatic poets, who made it a carrier of the ideals of the Greek world.
220 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
Did Not Finish
August 9, 2026My younger brother got me this book as a very thoughtful book while he studied abroad in Greece. I was really excited to read it as part of my Odyssey deep-dive, but was quickly disappointed. I did not enjoy the writing at all and that feeling only got worse each page. The physical book was also cheaply made, with the text block separating from the banding, and the banding separating from the spine. I put it in a little free library and hope somebody else enjoys it more than I did.
Still a very thoughtful gift even though the book sucked.
Still a very thoughtful gift even though the book sucked.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review