From Olympus to Camelot: The World of European Mythology

ISBN-13: 9780195143614 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 224 str.

David Adams Leeming

Opis

"From Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day 'myths' as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, Leeming's intriguing treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground. Out of this enormous variety of information, Leeming, a professor of comparative literature and author of The World of Myth, discerns a coherent, distinctive European mythical tradition.... His wide-ranging, well-written treatment contains a wealth of insights on the development of Western culture." --PW Online

Recenzje

David Leeming's learning is vast, his ability to synthesize astonishing. Some scholars are 'conservative' in the best sense: they conserve human knowledge by analyzing it carefully before packaging it in useful compendia. Leeming has contributed yeoman service in a series of volumes that span huge areas of mythological and religious traditions. This volume will be especially helpful to readers who are interested in the broad range of European mythologies that stretch, thanks to Proto-Indo-European materials, into India and even northern Africa. The work adroitly summarizes what can be extremely complex and contradictory, namely the fragmentary archaeological hints of symbol, myth, and culture in Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.

O autorze

David Leeming is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. His books include The World of Myth, Dictionary of Asian Mythology, Myths, Legends, and Folktales, and Myth: A Biography of Belief. He lives in New York City.