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From (Theogonic) Mythos to (Poetic) Logos: Reading Pindar’s Genealogical Metaphors after Freidenberg

From (Theogonic) Mythos to (Poetic) Logos: Reading Pindar’s Genealogical Metaphors after Freidenberg Abstract This paper analyzes the use of kinship categories to refer to personified (hypostasized) concepts in Ancient Greek literature, with particular emphasis on Pindar. This device serves to include an abstract concept within a genealogy that is dominated by divinities or quasi-religious entities. Comparing the use of this device in Hesiod, Plato, and Pindar, I suggest that, before the emergence of properly analytic categories within the philosophical discourse, genealogical metaphor served as the most important means of concept formation available to Ancient Greeks. In particular, Pindar’s use of genealogical metaphors points to a productive encounter between image and concept. In this context, I review the neglected work of the Soviet Classicist Olga Freidenberg, who put forward a theory of poetic metaphor as a transitional phenomenon between mythological image and philosophical concept, and discuss the differences between the method of historical poetics employed by Freidenberg and the idealist paradigm that informs the better known work by Hermann Fränkel, Bruno Snell, and Wilhelm Nestle on the shift from “mythos” to “logos” in early Greek thought and literature. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions Brill

From (Theogonic) Mythos to (Poetic) Logos: Reading Pindar’s Genealogical Metaphors after Freidenberg

Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions , Volume 12 (1): 49 – Jan 1, 2012

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Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Poetics
ISSN
1569-2116
eISSN
1569-2124
DOI
10.1163/156921212X629464
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Abstract This paper analyzes the use of kinship categories to refer to personified (hypostasized) concepts in Ancient Greek literature, with particular emphasis on Pindar. This device serves to include an abstract concept within a genealogy that is dominated by divinities or quasi-religious entities. Comparing the use of this device in Hesiod, Plato, and Pindar, I suggest that, before the emergence of properly analytic categories within the philosophical discourse, genealogical metaphor served as the most important means of concept formation available to Ancient Greeks. In particular, Pindar’s use of genealogical metaphors points to a productive encounter between image and concept. In this context, I review the neglected work of the Soviet Classicist Olga Freidenberg, who put forward a theory of poetic metaphor as a transitional phenomenon between mythological image and philosophical concept, and discuss the differences between the method of historical poetics employed by Freidenberg and the idealist paradigm that informs the better known work by Hermann Fränkel, Bruno Snell, and Wilhelm Nestle on the shift from “mythos” to “logos” in early Greek thought and literature.

Journal

Journal of Ancient Near Eastern ReligionsBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2012

Keywords: Pindar; personification; concept formation; genealogy; metaphor; theogony; Olga Freidenberg; Ernst Cassirer; mythical thought

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