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Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods
The hatching of the Cosmic Egg, the swallowing of Phanes by Zeus, and the murder of Dionysus by the Titans were just a few of the many stories that appeared in ancient Greek epic poems that were thought to have been written by the legendary singer Orpheus. Most of this poetry is now lost, surviving only in the form of brief quotations by Greek philosophers.
Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods brings together the scattered fragments of four Orphic the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic theogonies. Typically, theogonies are thought to be poetic accounts of the creation of the universe and the births of the gods, leading to the creation of humans and the establishment of the present state of the cosmos. The most famous example is Hesiod's Theogony , which unlike the Orphic theogonies has survived. But did Orphic theogonies look anything like Hesiod's Theogony ? Meisner applies a new theoretical model for studying Orphic theogonies and suggests certain features that characterize them as different from the blending of Near Eastern narrative elements that are missing in Hesiod; the probability that these were short hymns, more like the Homeric Hymnsr than Hesiod; and the continuous discourse between myth and philosophy that can be seen in Orphic poems and the philosophers who quote them. Most importantly, this book argues that the Orphic myths of Phanes emerging from the Cosmic Egg and Zeus swallowing Phanes are at least as important as the well-known myth of Dionysus being dismembered by the Titans, long thought to have been the central myth of Orphism. As this book amply demonstrates, Orphic literature was a diverse and ever-changing tradition by which authors were able to think about the most current philosophical ideas through the medium of the most traditional poetic forms.
Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods brings together the scattered fragments of four Orphic the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic theogonies. Typically, theogonies are thought to be poetic accounts of the creation of the universe and the births of the gods, leading to the creation of humans and the establishment of the present state of the cosmos. The most famous example is Hesiod's Theogony , which unlike the Orphic theogonies has survived. But did Orphic theogonies look anything like Hesiod's Theogony ? Meisner applies a new theoretical model for studying Orphic theogonies and suggests certain features that characterize them as different from the blending of Near Eastern narrative elements that are missing in Hesiod; the probability that these were short hymns, more like the Homeric Hymnsr than Hesiod; and the continuous discourse between myth and philosophy that can be seen in Orphic poems and the philosophers who quote them. Most importantly, this book argues that the Orphic myths of Phanes emerging from the Cosmic Egg and Zeus swallowing Phanes are at least as important as the well-known myth of Dionysus being dismembered by the Titans, long thought to have been the central myth of Orphism. As this book amply demonstrates, Orphic literature was a diverse and ever-changing tradition by which authors were able to think about the most current philosophical ideas through the medium of the most traditional poetic forms.
- GenresMythologyNonfiction
330 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 17, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
September 20, 2019
A very illuminating book. I'm not a classicist, so people looking for that kind of perspective may not find my review helpful. However, I read a lot of things that intersect with Orphic ideas, and this book is very helpful at laying out the current conversations and presenting some interpretations of what is even going on in this scholarly space. The author translates a few of the fragments while commenting on them, and the ones that are translated have very powerful imagery — I really like it. I'm also a poet (and a lot of my poetry is religious), so I felt like someone accidentally listening in on a conversation I wasn't supposed to hear given the importance of bricoleur/bricolage and analyzing what's going on with poetry and these poets in the monograph. It's fun to jump outside of one's perspective for a bit.
April 12, 2021
Found it more interesting at the end. Mostly this was a mistake to read on my part--was hoping for more on how the Gods were viewed in Orphism. This was very heavy academia and had to do mostly with comparing and contrasting different points of view on the topic. It got old after a while: 'while x person thinks this, y person thinks this, and z person thinks this...' Not for the faint of heart.
Definitely learned a lot about Orphism, but by god there must have been a better way to learn it.
Definitely learned a lot about Orphism, but by god there must have been a better way to learn it.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews