Research Catalog

Title

Euhemerism and its uses : the mortal gods / edited by Syrithe Pugh.

Publication

• Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.
• ©2021

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Pugh, Syrithe

Description

x, 336 pages : illustrations (black and white); 25 cm.

Summary

"Euhemerism and Its Uses is an inter-disciplinary volume, bringing together experts on classical, mediaeval and Renaissance literature, theory of myth and religious studies to give the first focussed and all-round view of the phenomenon across the long history of its evolution. Euhemerism--the claim that the Greek gods were historically mortal men and women--originated in the early third century BCE, in an enigmatic and now fragmentary text by the otherwise unknown author, Euhemeros. This work, the Sacred Inscription, has been read variously as a theory of religion, an atheist's manifesto, as justifying or satirizing ruler-worship, as a fantasy travel-narrative, and as an early 'utopia'. Influencing Hellenistic and Roman literature and religious and political thought, and appropriated by early Christians to debunk polytheism while simultaneously justifying the continued study of classical literature, euhemerism was widespread in the middle ages and Renaissance, and its reverberations continue to be felt in modern myth-theory. Yet, though frequently invoked as a powerful and pervasive tradition across several disciplines, it is still under-examined and poorly understood. Filling an important gap in the history of ideas, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of classical reception, mediaeval and Renaissance literature, historiography, and theories of myth and religion"--

Series Statement

Routledge studies in Renaissance and early modern worlds of knowledge

Uniform Title

Routledge studies in Renaissance and early modern worlds of knowledge.

Subject

• Euhemerism
• Mythology
• Religion

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Contents

Gods in space and time: Callimachus and Euhemerus / C. L. Caspers -- Euhemerism in Virgil's Aeneid and Ovid's Metamorphoses / Dalida Agri -- Lactantius' Euhemerism and its reception / Elizabeth Depalma Digeser, Avery Barboza -- Grounding the gods: spreading geographical euhemerism from Servius to Boccaccio / Amanda Gerber -- Mythography as ethnography. Euhemerism in Giovanni Boccaccio's explications of Mercury in the Genealogie Deorum Gentilium Libri / David Lummus -- Tracking Titan from Boccaccio to Milton: euhemerism and Tyrannomachy in the Renaissance / Syrithe Pugh -- 'Canonized bones': Shakespeare, Donne, and the euhemeristic aesthetic in early modern England / Ethan John Guagliardo -- Totus adest oculis? Approaching euhemerism in Ben Jonson, his part of king james his royal and magnificent entertainment, 1604 / Emma Buckley -- 'The sins of Euemeros against truth and honesty': Indo-European Comparative Mythology versus Euhemerism in Victorian Britain / Michael D. Konaris -- Frazer as euhemerist: the case of Osiris / Robert A. Segal -- Between reception and deception: the perennial problem with euhemerism / Nickolas P. Roubekas.

Call Number

JFE 21-6107

ISBN

• 9780367556990
• 0367556995

LCCN

• 2020043429
• 40030469652

OCLC

1197721804

Title

Euhemerism and its uses : the mortal gods / edited by Syrithe Pugh.

Publisher

Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021.

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Routledge studies in Renaissance and early modern worlds of knowledge

Routledge studies in Renaissance and early modern worlds of knowledge.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Added Author

Pugh, Syrithe, editor.

Other Form:

Online version: Euhemerism and its uses London ; New York : Routledge, 2021. 9781003094760 (DLC) 2020043430

Other Standard Identifier

40030469652

Research Call Number

JFE 21-6107