Ancient Themes Research Articles

ТРАНСФОРМАЦІЯ МІФУ ПРО ДЕМЕТРУ, ГАДЕСА ТА ПЕРСЕФОНУ У ЦИКЛІ РОМАНІВ СКАРЛЕТТ СЕНТ-КЛЕР «ГАДЕС І ПЕРСЕФОНА»

The article examines the transformation of the myth of Demeter, Hades and Persephone in the novel series by the contemporary American author Scarlett St. Clair "Hades and Persephone". The novel series is a fantasy on an ancient theme, where the ancient Greek myth is modernized. The relevance of the study is due to the extreme popularity of Scarlett St. Clair’s books among ancient themes fantasy fans and the popularity of ancient themes fantasy itself, the uniqueness of processing ancient Greek myths, the lack of appropriate literary analysis of S. St. Clair’s works in Ukrainian criticism in general and the «Hades and Persephone» series in particular[ПW3]. The article's purpose is to explore the transformation of the myth of Demeter, Hades and Persephone in the novel series by contemporary American author Scarlett St. Clair. The research task is to analyze the metalizing of the ancient Greek myth about Demeter, Hades and Persephone, the eternal triangle of mother-daughter-son-in-law, and to identify the recognizable modern clichés of popular psychology in the analyzed texts. Ancient mythology serves as a mirror of psychology and psychiatry: all known deviations and accents are reflected in the plots of ancient Greek myths. The dramatic triangle of Demeter – Persephone – Hades embodies common psychological relationships. Demeter is the mother’s archetype, despotically fixated on her adult daughter; Persephone is a girl undergoing the separation from her mother and forced to choose between her husband and her mother; Hades is a son-in-law who has to confront the all-powerful mother-in-law, trying to free his newlywed wife from her mother's total control. The work consistently deconstructs the archetype of the virgin: Persephone is a 24-yearold student-intern, a future journalist, devoted to her studies and work, who has escaped her mother's care. The girl feels constantly her mother’s disappointment in her. Until she was 18, she grew up in her mother's greenhouse-prison, where her power manifestation was not allowed and total control was masked as care. In the novel, as in the myth, Demeter is realized as a typical toxic mother, with her total control, hyper-care and maternal selfishness. She made Persephone promise to stay away from men, trying to instill in her hatred and distrust of men, seeking to regain control over her daughter, by turning her away from her beloved and locking her up again. At the same time, she is deeply lonely in her desire to deprive Persephone of personal happiness, being realized only as a mother. Demeter denies her daughter the right to love and to make mistakes on her own. Later, it becomes clear why, the motive of Demeter’s rape by Poseidon is consciously incorporated into the backstory of Persephone's birth. Demeter behaves as a typical offended mother, shifting the blame to her daughter and justifying herself. Demeter puts the question bluntly - either Hades or her, and she painfully experiences the fact that her daughter chooses Hades over her. For Persephone, Hades embodies an alluring mystery and temptation, but the seeds of hatred, sown by her mother, have grown too deeply in the girl's soul, causing a severe internal conflict. Growing hatred for Hades, Demeter inadvertently pushes her daughter towards him, as the intense pressure on the girl's personal boundaries causes resistance and, thus, interest in everything forbidden by her mother. In addition, Demeter knows from Moira about her daughter's destiny – to be the queen of the Underworld and the wife of Hades. As a despotic mother, she was dissatisfied with her daughter's future place of residence, her future son-inlaw, and, moreover, that her daughter would escape her control. She is resisting and trying to change her beloved daughter’s destiny, aiming to deprive her of female happiness, rebelling against the higher law of Fate, thus becoming also a kind of female Oedipus. Being lonely and disillusioned in love, she wishes the same for her daughter. Thus, in addition to the enchanted world of ancient gods, S. St. Clair presents trendy clichés of modern popular psychology: painful avoiding attachment, neurotic love, anxiety, abuse, toxic relationships, jealousy, childhood traumas and complexes, communication problems, self-denial – the issues are consistently embodied in the images of Demeter, Persephone and Hades. Keywords: ancient myth, archetype of Demeter, Persephone, fantasy, novel, Scarlett St. Clair, «Hades and Persephone».

Editorial Introduction

Abstract This special issue examines the use of classical antiquity within artistic, cultural, and political events under fascist regimes in the interwar period. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany promoted the production of ancient drama, alongside forms of theater modelled on Greek antiquity, organized grand-scale classical spectacles, and deployed ancient themes and classical-looking symbols and insignia at political gatherings and displays. The analyses presented in this special issue bring into dialogue the scholarship on theater and culture under fascist regimes with the growing literature on the reception of the classics to foreground the significance of performative practices in reconfiguring the classicizing mythologies of fascism. It is the hope of the guest editors that the findings presented here will contribute to the study of performances that strove to re-enact historical pasts beyond the scope of classical reception.

ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІЙНІ ОБРАЗИ ТА НАРАТИВИ В ПОЕЗІЇ РІЛЬКЕ (досвід перекладу Богдана Кравціва)

ЕКЗИСТЕНЦІЙНІ ОБРАЗИ ТА НАРАТИВИ В ПОЕЗІЇ РІЛЬКЕ (досвід перекладу Богдана Кравціва)

Charles Godfrey Leland and His Magical Tales

Charles Godfrey Leland and His Magical Tales

“Demonic, Ecstatic Antiquity”: On the Interpretation of Myth in the Opera “Elektra” by Richard Strauss — Hugo von Hofmannsthal

The opera “Elektra” is of particular significance for Richard Strauss. It opens an ancient line in his musical and theatrical legacy and is at the same time the culmination of expressionist tendencies in his work. It also marks the start of Strauss’s collaboration with H. von Hofmannsthal as librettist. The tragedy of Hofmannsthal focuses on trends typical of the new understanding of antiquity in the second half of the 19th century. An interest in the archaic, in ancient cults and rituals representing the irrational aspects of Greek culture, is brought to the forefront. Hofmannsthal’s “Electra” was one of the first literary works to embody the new image of Greece. In the course of work on the opera, a particular role played the treatise on matriarchy in the pre-Hellenistic era “Das Mutterrecht” (1861) by J. J. Bachofen. It acquired unexpected relevance at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries when matriarchy was anxiously perceived as a resurgent world order. Hofmannsthal’s “Electra” appears as the realm of matriarchy. The concentration on the image of the title character, the embodiment on the stage of a short but key segment of her life, the raging of dark passions make Elektra a characteristic phenomenon of expressionist theatre. In Strauss’s opera the role of Elektra is further expanded. With the help of sharp stylistic contrasts in the musical characterization of the heroine, Strauss conveys the dissociation of her personality, her loss of identity. For Strauss, “Elektra” was the culmination of extreme emotional states that demanded the use of the most daring, within his style, compositional means. “Elektra” marks a turning point in the composer’s work. His next opera is “Der Rosenkavalier”, written in an entirely different style. Strauss’s subsequent operas on ancient themes are also very far from the irrationalist and innovative pathos of “Elektra”.

Muzika u Pazolinijevom Dekameronu - humor, duhovnost, (de)tabuizacija i poigravanje konvencionalnim označiteljima italijanske muzičke prošlosti

Pasolini's controversial figure, marked by refined and revolutionary leftist ideas, is based on experimental artistic ideals that defy the establishment and conservative ideological thinking. Promoting the de-tabooing of sexuality and a more open attitude towards cultural tradition, the director turned away from mimetic, naturalistic film practices and approached biblico-mythical and ancient themes. The selection of genre and stylistically diverse musical references from The Decameron is, thus, in line with the geographical shift of Boccaccio's humanist ideal from the central to the southern Italian macro-region. The aim of this paper is to determine Pasolini's ambivalent and in some ways subversive treatment of religious and folkloric signifiers of the Italian musical past. Flirting with material and immaterial signifying practices encourages alternative interpretations of spirituality, class antagonisms, folkloric traditions and cleverly profiled and unusual elements of eroticism.

Beer in Antiquity, Antiquity in Beer?

Modern breweries taking inspiration from ancient cultures appear as a quite interesting phenomenon, because beer is absent from the current imaginarium about the ancient Greeks and Romans. Yet it was not unknown to them, as demonstrated by the survey of sources in the first part of the text. Actually, some brewers today are aware of the beverage’s presence in ancient literature and use this knowledge in the naming of their products. Others decide on less direct references, to some historical or mythical characters. Some producers do not limit themselves to names of their brews, but also attempt to reconstruct the ancient drinks. In the second (main) part of the article several cases of each type are presented, together with an analysis of methods of the references’ presentation and explanation to the consumer. Also, some observations are made about the reasons why breweries decide to use ancient themes at all.

Social upbringing and an example of Antiquity in the writings of J.J. Rousseau

The article analyses the influence of Antiquity on J.-J. Rousseau’s ideas of social education. It is noted that Rousseau's interest in Antiquity emerged in childhood and was stimulated by Plutarch's works. In later years, he studied Latin and elements of the ancient Greek language, and translated the works of Tacitus and Seneca into French. Modern scholars place an emphasis on Rousseau's direct acquaintance with the works of ancient authors, in particular, under the influence of the home education that he received from his father, a Geneva watchmaker. At the same time, the article draws attention to the fact that Rousseau's interest in Antiquity coincided with his life choice: he decided to make a career as a writer and composer, and therefore focused on popular examples of creative writing. Montesquieu, Fenelon, Marquis d'Argens introduced ancient themes into the context of literary and academic polemics. Their example was followed by Rousseau, which is convincingly illustrated by the comparative analysis of Fenelon’s Dialogues of the Dead and Prosopopoeia of Fabricius in Rousseau's first Discourse. While retaining the main intention of the great moralist, namely the moral education of society by the writer on the examples of Antiquity, Rousseau rethinks it in the context of his own social anthropology. Antiquity is not an example to follow, but a starting point for a person of his time to think about their own social and cultural identity that is different from the past. Being a writer-moralist and political thinker, Rousseau essentially solved the problem of moral education regarding the perception and assessment of the ancient culture by his contemporaries and society.

At Once What Christ Is: The Deifying Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins

At Once What Christ IsThe Deifying Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins David Meconi SJ (bio) I. Introduction A robust theology of Christian deification can be found throughout the poetry of the English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89). Informing much of Hopkins's theistic imagery is his exhortation to his readers to become another Christ. What may sound like a daunting, if not heretical, claim has always been at the heart of the Christian faith in general and the core of Hopkins's spirituality in particular. Embedded in his most memorable pieces is a two-act drama wherein the Son of God becomes human as the curtain is raised, so that in the second act, we humans might become the sons and daughters of God. This is precisely what the best of the Christian Tradition taught to be the end and goal of the Christian life: not only to embrace God-made-flesh, but actually to continue his enfleshed presence in the world. If this were not somehow true, as St. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) put it, so much of sacred Scripture would be thrown into question: Now, however, I wonder if we shouldn't have a look at ourselves, if we shouldn't think about his body, because he is [End Page 116] also us (quia et nos ipse est). After all, if we weren't him, this wouldn't be true: When you did it for one of the least of mine, you did it for me (Mt 25:40). If we weren't him, this wouldn't be true: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? (Acts 9:4). So we too are him, because we are his organs, because we are his body, because he is our head, because the whole Christ is both head and body.1 There is no other way to makes sense of Christ's admonition to be "perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect" (Mt 5:48).2 This theology of deification was not only a consistent strand of thought running from the Fathers through the medieval doctors and into such contemporaries of Hopkins himself, such as Cardinal Newman (d. 1890) in his own beloved England or Matthias Scheeben (d. 1898) in Germany, it was a key evangelical principle embedded in Hopkins's own Jesuit training, evident most clearly in the Spiritual Exercises which he made every year of his religious life. The following article will therefore show how Hopkins drew from this ancient Christian soteriology of the "great exchange"—that God became human, so humans could become God—to inform his poetry's most central Christian imagery. Divided into two main sections, I first set out to appreciate the theology of divinization Hopkins would have been trained in through his post-Tridentine, Jesuit formation. Deification is not something normally associated with the Council of Trent (1545–63) and subsequent catechesis, nor is it readily found in the writings of Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the founder of the Society of Jesus. Yet, thanks to a more concentrated academic focus today, scholars have uncovered how the reality of "becoming god" does in fact run through these centuries of the post-Reformation period. The second half of this study will then turn to Hopkins's own writings and lay out where and how he draws from this ancient theme in composing some of his more memorable lines. [End Page 117] II. Brief Biography Gerard Manley Hopkins was born in Stratford in Essex on July 28, 1844 and was the oldest of nine children. The Hopkins family was intellectually refined. His father was a London shipping insurer who also published poetry, and his mother enjoyed the best education her physician father (who himself was educated in poetry by John Keats as a young man) in London could have provided. The home was by all evidence full of literature, music, and a deep appreciation for art, especially the sketches and woodcarvings of Gerard's aunts Annie and Maria. At primary school Hopkins became friends with Ernest Hartley ("E.H." in his letters) Coleridge, the grandson of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, before going up to Balliol College (1863–67), where he would take first...

ПРИЗРАЧНАЯ КАРЕТА: ОТ ФОЛЬКЛОРА К ЛИТЕРАТУРЕ

The image of a phantom coach is very common in British folklore and, like its predecessors – Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Wild Hunt, it is closely associated with death and bad omens. Quite understandably, it was widely used in ghost stories written in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. There are stories close to the folk tradition of storytelling, but much more often the authors create their own versions where the legends about phantom coaches are contaminated with other sources (such as ballads about demonic lovers) and lose certain elements which are essential for archaic mentality but can be easily neglected in modern fiction, e. g. death as punishment for doing or seeing something forbidden, church service as something that can drive away ghosts and demons. According to the rules of the genre, a coach turns into a kind of liminal zone, a subspace where the laws of the rational world do not work, a time capsule where the logic of a folktale prevails. There are versions where a coach is a means of communication between the world of the living and the world of the dead or demonic creatures. In later texts a coach gives way to a car, with all the functions preserved; this change is not connected with fears caused by the relatively new means of transport, the old image is merely transformed according to certain changes in everyday reality. The ancient themes of revenge, punishment, meeting the dead are recreated here, but sometimes the symbolism changes, it becomes more closely connected to the idea of time and memory. The analysis of how the image of a phantom coach works in ghost stories can help to understand certain tendencies in the development of the genre (what happens to folkloric sources, narrative principles, the ideas of time and death etc.).

Transcendental pride and Luciferism: On being bearers of light and powers of darkness

The ancient theme of the metaphysical-theological extremes of being-human is revisited by asking about the condition for the readiness to engage in the form of violence which is nuclear war. Sartre’s analysis of the extreme form of anger which crosses a threshold resulting in a self-legitimating righteous indignation which admits of no superior mollifying standpoint is appropriated to account for the complacency with the institution of nuclear weapons. The god-like anti-God characteristics of extreme rage are put on ice but ready to be thawed quickly in the three-quarter of a century old disposition to destroy the world in which all life that we know is lived. The parallels with the myth of Lucifer invite themselves. This raises the question of what there is in being-human which is the condition for the possibility of such Luciferian impulses. Features of being human explicated by Husserlian transcendental phenomenology serve as lures to the unique form of pride that here is called Luciferian. Here it is argued that these features can also be lures to a sense of pride, analogous to the ancient magnanimitas, as developed by Aquinas.

Classical Themes as Iconographic Motifs in Historical Allegorical Painting: Examples by Gustav Klimt in the Rijeka Municipal Theatre and Ivan Tišov at the University Library in Zagreb

In 19th-century humanistic education, Antiquity was considered to be the artistic and ethical peak of Western civilization. Based on ancient mythological and historical themes and motifs and genera...

Dance in Sculpture of the Early 20th Century

This article is concerned with the ratio of plastic arts as exemplified by sculptural works depicting dances of the early 20th century. Special attention is paid to the Greek motives in the Russian art of this period, which became the subject of inexhaustible aesthetic and artistic interest. The representation of ancient dance motifs, their figurative image and the nature of antiquity in sculptural plastics, various approaches to the interpretation of ancient plots and themes, the role and significance of the “antique” component in their artistic structure are considered in the article. The study of multi‐level interactions between sculpture and dance in the context of antiquity calls for a comprehensive approach, including historical‐cultural, theoretical‐analytical and comparative‐typological methods. Relating to ancient Greek images, ballet images of S. Konenkov, M. Ryndzyunskaya, N. Andreev, V. Vatagin, V. Beklimishev and S. Erzya provide a purely individual, unique and peculiar vision of dance corresponding to the ancient era. The categories and expressive means of dance were simultaneously analyzed close to the sculptural style of the masters because they are difficult to be divided methodologically and exist as an established artistic system. The concepts of “plastic expressiveness” in relation to the dancers imprinted in sculptures were interpreted. Analyzing the museum materials and sculptures depicting the dancing process, it was concluded that the ancient influence of plastic images on structural and genre determinants may vary.

Shaftesbury on Liberty and Self-Mastery

ABSTRACTThe aim of this paper is to show that Shaftesbury’s thinking about liberty is best understood in terms of self-mastery. To examine his understanding of liberty, I turn to a painting that he commissioned on the ancient theme of the choice of Hercules and the notes that he prepared for the artist. Questions of human choice are also present in the so-called story of an amour, which addresses the difficulties of controlling human passions. Jaffro distinguishes three notions of self-control that are present in the story of an amour. Although I agree with many aspects of Jaffro’s interpretation, I question his conclusion that self-control in the Stoic sense is best reserved for ‘moral heroes.’ I propose an alternative developmental interpretation, according to which all human beings are on an intellectual journey aimed at personal and moral improvement. My interpretation takes seriously that for Shaftesbury philosophy is meant to be practical and help improve our lives. I end by arguing that rather than trying to situate Shaftesbury’s concept of liberty within debates among compatibilists and incompatibilists it is more promising to understand it in terms of self-mastery and thus regard it as a version of positive liberty.

The Scopic drive and its destinies. The psychic functions of mask

The notion of scopic drive is essential in psychoanalysis. However, the powers of the gaze are an ancient theme already present in Greek mythology. The article makes connections between ancient mythology, psychoanalytic concepts and clinical issues. What is scopic drive? The article takes up again the question of the scopic drive of its mythological foundations until its representations in the contemporary art to show that « to watch » and « to be watched » are complex activities in psychic life, in which the question of the mask is inscribed. This research presents and questions the psychic functions of the mask, from a metapsychological point of view.

Investigating the Use of Ancient Fertility Themes in Malcolm Bradbury’s Eating People Is Wrong

Employing James George Frazer’s anthropological book The Golden Bough (1890) as a theoretical background, this paper examines the ways in which Malcolm Bradbury’s academic novel Eating People Is Wrong (1959) builds on ancient fertility rituals to delineate the divide between past and present moods and modes of thought and to illuminate the emotional and intellectual sterility afflicting the modern academy and its population. It will be clear that although their names and conduct resonate with echoes of the celebrations and rites of savage tribes and subsequent societies, Bradbury’s characters fail to enact the roles of ancient fertility divinities and to maintain the essential flavour of remote antiquity’s culture. This is best illustrated by the vain attempts of a number of ardent suitors to marry the leading but misleading character Emma Fielding, a latter-day fertility goddess who heartlessly hurts their hearts. While ancient fertility goddesses’ suitors or consorts were concerned about the welfare of the community on the whole, alongside their own welfare, their modern counterparts merely seek to enhance their narrow interests. Predictably, all the characters in the novel finish up helpless and hopeless. Finally, grounded on the premise that scholarly disciplines tend to crisscross in a mutually enriching manner, this investigation aims to prove how helpful it is for Bradbury to explore the academic soul and soil through the employment of studies from other fields and how interesting it is for the researcher to spot out this cultural trend and to bring it to the attention of the reader.

Transnational Human Trafficking

Human trafficking is a pernicious new variation on the ancient theme of slavery and trading in human flesh. It is considered a serious organised crime against humanity, reduces their sense of worth and punctures their ego and sense of dignity. Human trafficking is a transnational crime, a global problem that targets vulnerable individuals and affects every country. Its expansion depends on there being source countries with people demanding better economic living conditions, and destination countries with people or industries demanding cheap labour or cheap prostitution to enlarge their profits. The Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children by United Nations marks the international community's cumulative efforts to deal with this transnational organised crime. The Trafficking Protocol was entered into force on 2003. It has been signed by 117 countries and ratified by 159 parties. This article focuses on the ambiguity of definition of human trafficking given by UNO protocol.

Commentary on New Research on Ancient Themes in a New Journal

Commentary on New Research on Ancient Themes in a New Journal

The history and promise of holism in health promotion.

Holism is an ancient theme concept that has resurfaced in recent literature, and that requires informed and intentional use in order to preserve its utility. This paper provides a historical and conceptual reintroduction of the notion of holism as it relates to health, with the hopes of informing the term's use in public health discourse. It also addresses the challenges that a lack of conceptual clarity about holistic health imposes on public health and health promotion discussions. It describes how the use and conceptualizations of holism are shifting in health promotion and argues that failing to accurately define and delineate its scope risks diluting its utility for future health promotion applications. We address these two problems, and build an argument for a rediscovery of the theory of holism in public health and health promotion, globally.

전사자 추모의 ‘탈전후적’ 상상력 -에토 준의 야스쿠니 문화론을 중심으로-

Prime Ministers of Japan in the 2000s have justified their visits to Yasukuni Shrine on `cultural relativism,` that these visits should not be criticized as they are part of Japan`s tradition and culture. As this article finds, such cultural relativist argument by Japanese Prime Ministers can be traced back to the work of Eto Jun`s Perspectives of the Living and the Dead (1986) - Japan`s representative post-war conservative culturalist. Briefly put, Eto Jun argues in this article that Prime Ministers` official visits to Yasukuni Shrine should not be contextualized in terms of the constitutionality, whether they are infringing on the principle of separating religions from the state matters. Instead, Eto finds that the discussions on the Yasukuni visits should be addressed in a separate cultural dimension, how these practices are at the essence of how Japanese society have treated the livings and the deads - Japan`s own culture of the livings and their `sense of co-existence/symbiosis with their memories of the deads.` However, what makes Eto`s essay exceptional is not so much of his application of cultural relativism to the Yasukuni issues, but his unique reasoning and approach to history. He criticizes Japanese society`s contemporary tendency to treat the issue of Yasukuni Shrine visits in relation to the 1946 postwar Constitution. Instead, he argues that the meaning of Yasukuni Shrine should be thought as part of important ancient literary theme - symbiosis between the livings and deceased. Put differently, Eto is bringing in a much broader scope and timeframe, extending and connecting the `postwar` frame to the `ancient` period. While this approach seems to highlight Eto`s emphasis on understanding in-depth history, his extensive scope actually generalizes the meanings of individual histories. Based on his personal or fictional extension of history, Eto is trying to construct `history as an event.` Such approach to history can be similarly found in Eto`s other writings on the post-war history. To Eto, post-war Japan has become distorted and `enclosed within set of dictions` under the censorship of GHQ, as well as the `virtual reality` created by bureaucrats who have treated the Yasukuni issues only in the realms of legal principles. By focusing on the origin of occupation and censorship in Japan, Eto seeks to erase the distinctiveness of historical incidents of power politics and struggles in Japanese history.