This book was first published in 2004. Plato, Aristophanes and the creators of the 'Orphic' gold tablets employ the traditional tale of a journey to the realm of the dead to redefine, within the mythic narrative, the boundaries of their societies. Rather than being the relics of a faded ritual tradition or the products of Orphic influence, these myths can only reveal their mean...
This book was first published in 2004. Plato, Aristophanes and the creators of the 'Orphic' gold tablets employ the traditional tale of a journey to the realm of the dead to redefine, within the mythic narrative, the boundaries of their societies. Rather than being the relics of a faded ritual tradition or the products of Orphic influence, these myths can only reveal their meanings through a close analysis of the specific ways in which each author makes use of the tradition. For these authors, myth is an agonistic discourse, neither a kind of sacred dogma nor a mere literary diversion, but rather a flexible tool that serves the wide variety of uses to which it is put. The traditional tale of the journey to the Underworld in Greek mythology is neither simple nor single, but each telling reveals a perspective on the cosmos, a reflection of the order of this world through the image of the other.
The old, childish self dies and the new, adult self comes into being at the end of the rite; in structuralist terms, the tale expresses the bipolar opposition of life and death, as well as the mediation between them. Whether the protagonist is the hero descending alive into Hell, the initiand experiencing initiation, or the deceased suffering death, the pattern and the meaning are taken to be the same– the replacement of the old self with the new. (查看原文)
The Orphic life is a rejection of the ordinary way of living governed by the customs and hierarchies of the polis society in favor of living in accordance with the ideal of the golden age, free from violence and bloodshed. (查看原文)
0 有用 波士顿驴 2025-05-23 13:52:16 上海
非常兹瓷Orphic Reading of Plato，最近反而是对哲学的生成产生兴趣，在俄耳甫斯的教诲中灵魂的诞生是对“正常秩序”的反叛，并不存在一个正统的雅典