Traditional Legend Research Articles

Soma-vamsi Yayati in Tradition and Medieval Odia Literature

Soma-vamsi Yayati I ( circa A.D. 922–55) has been called as ‘the father of modern Orissa’ by no less a person than K.C. Panigrahi, the celebrated historian of Odisha. As the ancient king Jajati Kesari, supposed to be Somavamsi Yayati I, occupies an important place in the Odisha’s traditions, public memory, Odia literature and in Odisha’s historiography such a claim appears to be quite natural. Panigrahi’s claim rests primarily on the legendary traditions centring round the king Jajati Kesari and medieval Odia literary texts such as Mahabharata by Raja Krushna Singh and the fifteenth century epic Sarala Mahabharata. Recently, however, scholars such as Snigdha and Tripathy, Susmita Arp and Hermann Kulke have challenged the authenticity of the Mahabharata by Raja Krushna Singh and these legendary traditions, as being unreliable. This article, attempts to closely examine the reliability and acceptability of these legendary traditions and literary texts, and focuses on the Sarala Mahabharata as a possible historical source material. In addition, it will also seek to show how in the early years of Odia identity construction historians as well as other men of letters of the Odia speaking tracts made an endeavour to make Yayati Kesari an icon of Odia identity which, in turn, might have indirectly induced Panigrahi to advance such a claim.

Poetic Escape in Vladimir Kazakov's Don Žuan Cycle

This article analyzes neo-avant-garde Russian writer Vladimir Kazakov's (1938–1988) Don Zhuan dramatic cycle (1983). Kazakov's four short plays and epilogue loosely reconstruct the Don Juan legend as an absurd, anachronistic series of adventures that deliberately avoid any concrete references to Soviet reality. In doing so, Kazakov parodies the traditional legend as represented by Pushkin and other Russian writers. At the same time, he employs motifs emphasized by these writers – such as the road, exile, and Don Juan's poetic creativity – in order to reflect on the challenge of creating apolitical art that entirely avoids allusion to Soviet political issues.

<i>Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 6: Heldenlieder</i> (review)

Reviewed by: Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 6: Heldenlieder Margaret Clunies Ross Kommentar zu den Liedern der Edda, vol. 6: Heldenlieder. By Klaus von See, Beatrice La Farge, Eve Picard, Katja Schulz, Matthias Teichert. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2009. Pp. 962. EUR 98. This, the fifth and nearly the largest volume to be published in the most extensive commentary there has yet been on the Old Norse-Icelandic Poetic Edda corpus, is also the third published volume of the Frankfurt commentary series on Norse heroic poetry, Volumes 4 and 5 being the other two, published in 2004 and 2006 respectively. Volumes 2 and 3, dealing with mythological poems, appeared in 1997 and 2000, and the scholarly community now awaits the final volume, which will complete the commentary on the mythological poems. The five volumes of Kommentar to appear so far are the work of a team of scholars from the Frankfurter Institut für Skandinavistik, led by Klaus von See and Beatrice La Farge, and assisted by several other researchers. Like most long-running projects, the Kommentar has required dedication and high levels of expertise from its authors, as well as continuing financial and infrastructural support, in this case from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Goethe University of Frankfurt respectively. It is also of interest that the Kommentar series is now to be complemented by another project, on “Edda-Rezeption,” from the same Institute but under the leadership of Julia Zernack. It will be fascinating to see the extent to which the two research projects are able to interrelate. The enormous body of scholarship that has been generated—and will continue to be generated—by a small anthology of medieval Icelandic poetry speaks to the unique importance of its contents. Most of the Poetic Edda corpus comes down to us in a single late thirteenth-century Icelandic codex, GKS 2365 4°, now in the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík, though some of its texts are also found in other Icelandic manuscripts. The codex divides into two parts, the first eleven poems having subjects relating to the pre-Christian gods of early Scandinavia, the second group of twenty poems dealing with high and low points in the lives of figures of Old Norse heroic legend. Some of the subject-matter of the heroic poems is common to a number of early Germanic legendary traditions, and is therefore of interest to scholars of Old High German and Old English as well as to scholars of Old Norse. It is also of key significance to those interested in oral literature and Germanic myth and religion. The Poetic Edda’s importance to so many areas of study and research readily explains how it is possible to produce a commentary of several thousand pages to a poetic corpus that runs to only a little over three hundred pages of edited text in the standard edition of Hans Kuhn and Gustav Neckel (5th edn 1983). The volume of Kommentar reviewed here deals with a group of poems of the Poetic Edda codex that come immediately after a lacuna in the manuscript between stanzas 1–37 of Sigrdrífumál (The Speech of Sigrdrífa) and what remains of the poem now called by most editors Brot af Sigurðarkviðu (Fragment of a Poem about Sigurðr), which is an overview of the events of the Germanic hero Sigurðr’s adult life leading up to his death. (Volume 5 was devoted to poetry about Sigurðr’s youth.) The group of poems in Volume 6 treats the various legends about the hero’s tragic and tangled relations with his brother-in-law and rival Gunnarr and two women, Brynhildr and Guðrún. The relationships between these four characters are narrated in some detail in Völsunga saga and in part of Snorri Sturluson’s Edda, as well as in the Middle High German Nibelungenlied. Because part of the Poetic [End Page 551] Edda codex is missing at this point (exactly how much continues to be debated), the Kommentar authors add a section at the end of the volume (pp. 943–62) on fragments of poetry recorded in...

The Traditional Legend of the Apgak­tree(鴨脚樹) in Cheongju and Flooding Motif

The Traditional Legend of the Apgak­tree(鴨脚樹) in Cheongju and Flooding Motif

Clérigos y feligreses en la Basílica de San Vicente de Ávila: actividades litúrgicas, lúdicas y funerarias (siglos XVI-XVII)

This article studies the basilica of the Saint- Martyrs Vicente, Sabina and Cristeta of Avila. As a huge Romanesque religious building, it was erected in the 12th century following the rediscovery of various late medieval hagiographical traditions. Within a strong funerary and legendary tradition, it became the place where the clergy variously developed their activities, where parishioners would be buried in the hope of entering the next world, and where the local people attended religious and secular festivals, such as processions and dances, bull rituals, as well as a great variety of spectacles designed to highlight a mythicised image of the city and of the church itself.

Objet de trésor et mémoire projective : le vase « de saint Martin », onques faict par mains d'omme terrien

A piece of treasure and a projective memory : The “Saint Martin” Vase, onques faict par mains d’omme terrien. The treasure of the Abbey of Saint-Maurice d’Agaune has a sard vase from the 1st Century BC, which legendary tradition attributes to being a gift of Saint Martin. The legend dates back to a little after the middle of the 12th Century and, in all likelihood, was created at the Abbey of Saint-Maurice, at a critical moment of spiritual renewal for the Abbey, which led to the reorganization of the Abbey’s memory. At Saint-Maurice, this involved both legal documents, which were “falsified”, and individual pieces in its treasury for which prestigious donors were invented : by calling on “founders” or “patrons” from the distant past, the Abbey could acquire a longer history and so carry on as a sacred site.

In the Lands of the Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (review)

In the Lands of the Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (review)

Colchester’s Legend on Stage:The Emperor Constantine by Dorothy L. Sayers

When Dorothy L. Sayers was asked to write a play for the Colchester Cathedral Festival (part of the Festival of Britain) of 1951, she took the opportunity of using Colchester’s favourite legend concerning the town’s patron, St Helena. This legend was an obvious choice for Sayers: not only was Helena important for her legendary discovery of the True Cross, she was also claimed by Colchester as a local girl. Most importantly for Sayers’ purpose, this legendary Helena, as the daughter of Old King Cole, conferred British ancestry on her son, Constantine, the first Christian emperor of Rome.2 The festival play, which Sayers called The Emperor Constantine,3 exploits the local legend specifically to tie Constantine to Colchester and thereby to justify situating the origins of her story on home soil. But once the play is underway, the familiar legend is relegated to the background so that Sayers’ real interests – fourthcentury ecclesiastical history and Christian theology – can take the spotlight. Now that the fourth volume of Sayers’ letters has been published, the dramatist’s passionate attitude towards her subject matter and personal involvement in staging this ambitious and complicated play have come to light and can be examined in the context of her strategic use of the legendary tradition by which Colchester lays claim to Helena.

Against the Historical Plausibility of the Empty Tomb Story and the Bodily Resurrection of Jesus: A Response to N.T. Wright

AbstractWright's recent book on the resurrection is the most important defence of the historical accuracy of the empty tomb and the bodily resurrection. However, his arguments do not stand up to close scrutiny. Sufficient attention is not paid to the importance of Jewish and pagan legendary traditions concerning great figures of the past. Unlike non-Christian traditions, the Gospel narratives are never treated with any decree of scepticism (not even Mt. 27.52-53) which is a dubious practice for a historian. The earliest evidence for the empty tomb has no genuine eyewitness support (in contrast to the resurrection appearances) and Mk 16.8 suggests that the story was not well known. The first resurrection appearances are more likely to be visionary experiences interpreted as a bodily raised figure, which meant that the early accounts of Paul and Mark could assume an empty tomb even if historically this was not the case.

Legendary genealogies of Byzantine Emperors and their families

Legendary genealogies of Byzantine Emperors and their families

Pozo Moro, Child Sacrifice, and the Greek Legendary Tradition

I. The Pozo Moro Relief Since antiquity, references in Hebrew scriptures and remarks in ancient Greek and Roman authors have been cited to prove that various Northwest Semitic peoples practiced child sacrifice.1 These include population whom Hebrew Scriptures call Canaanites; people whom modern scholars, following Greeks, call Phoenicians; and Phoenicians who settled in western Mediterranean and whom modern scholars, following Romans, call Punic. In fact, at sites of Punic settlements have been found burial grounds that contain cremated remains only of young children and animals. Archaeologists call such burial grounds tophets after Hebrew term for place where children were sacrificed.2 Shelby Brown, who sums up evidence, believes that these tophets house remains of sacrificed children and thereby support literary testimony of child sacrifice.3 In 1971, one enigmatic piece of evidence, a relief that probably illustrates practice, was unearthed at Pozo Moro, Spain. It is carved on a stone funerary monument that dates to approximately 500-490 B.C.E. and is currently housed in Museo ArqueolOgico Nacional in Madrid (figs. 1 and 2). The relief (fig. 3) depicts a banquet prepared for a monster that sits, facing right, in left part of image. The monster has a human body and two heads, one above other. The heads have open mouths with lolling tongues. In its left hand it holds rear leg of a supine pig lying on a banquet table in front of it. In its right hand, it holds a bowl. Just over rim of bowl can be seen head and feet of a small person. In background, a figure in a long garment raises a bowl in a gesture of offering. Opposite monster is mutilated image of a third figure. It is standing and raising in its right hand a sword with a curved blade. Its head is in shape of a bull or horse. Its left hand is touching head of a second small person in a bowl on a second table or a tripod near banquet table.4 The funerary tower on which this relief is carved comes from an area that, in period of its construction, was clearly subject to Punic or Phoenician influence and resembles monuments from Achaemenid western Asia.5 The relief itself resembles eastern Mediterranean depictions of offerings or sacrifices, and sword with curved blade, associated with sacrifice, supports resemblance.6 It appears that small figures, most likely children, are being offered in bowls to two-headed monster. Accordingly, it is reasonable to believe that relief, however imaginatively, represents Northwest Semitic child sacrifice.7 The relief is mysterious. In her study of Carthaginian child sacrifice, Brown wrote that the scene is more provocative than helpful.8 The excavator of Pozo Moro, Marton Almagro-Gorbea, wrote that its interpretation is enormously complex.9 Lamentably, it is locally unique and not associated with any written text. In order to make sense of it, we must look at phenomena often equally obscure and quite distant in time and place from milieu of Pozo Moro in early fifth century B.C.E. This is a hazardous undertaking; if an investigator claims that relief repeats a motif found elsewhere in Mediterranean cultural tradition, each may be used to support interpretation of other, and it becomes possible to construct invalid interpretations relying solely on circular argumentation. The relief, however, presents such powerful imagery that it automatically stimulates speculation. As I hope to demonstrate in this article, a Hellenist may see in it eerie echoes of Greek legendary tradition. The body of this article will explore these possible connections between Pozo Moro relief and Greek legendary tradition. section II will explore possibility that animal-headed figure on right of relief is an image associated with Minotaur of Greek folklore. …

"Myth and Psychology": The Curing of Orest in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris

CYRUS HAMLIN "Myth and Psychology": The Curing of Orest in Goethe's Iphigenie auf Tauris1 "Alle menschliche Gebrechen Sühnet reine Menschlichkeit." Goethe, 31 March 1827 (HA 5:406) Goethe's drama Iphigenie aufTauris (published in final verse form in his Schriften, 1787) is not widely known to readers today outside the somewhat closed confines of German Classicism. Even the traditional legend of Iphigenia from ancient Greece—above all in the drama by Euripides that served as the model for Goethe's play, presumably in the French translation by Pierre Brumoy, Iphigenie en Tauride, contained in his Theatre des Grecs (1730)—is unfamiliar in its details to general readers. The single, most salient fact of this legend—familiar above all from the opening Chorus of Aeschylus's Agamemnon—is the sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis by command of her father in response to the anger of the goddess Artemis, who has raised contrary winds that prevent the Greek armies from saiMng against Troy. That fact, of course, is radically revised by Euripides : Iphigenia appears at the outset of his drama to reveal that she was rescued at the last moment by Artemis and carried off to the remote barbaric kingdom of Tauris at the far end of the Black Sea to serve as priestess in the sacred grove of the goddess. The irony in this revisionary reading of the myth resides in the fact that the intended sacrificial victim from Aulis must now officiate at the sacrificial deaths of all strangers who happen to reach the alien shores of Tauris. In Euripides's play there is an altar on stage stained with blood and decorated with the skulls of previous victims. In Goethe's version of the drama it is made clear that Iphigenie has succeeded in suspending the practice of human sacrifice, although the barbarian king Thoas attempts to reinstate the practice in response (in act 1) to the refusal of his priestess to marry him. The intended victims of the sacrifice in both dramas, adding a further irony to these revisionary readings of the legend, turn out to be Iphigenia's own brother, Orestes, accompanied by his companion Pylades. The former is haunted by the curse of a blood crime, having murdered his mother Clytaemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon, and both Greeks have been sent to Tauris on instructions of the god Apollo through his oracle at Delphi, to bring the cult statue of the Goethe Yearbook XII (2004) 60 Cyrus Hamlin god's sister Artemis back to Greece, thereby effecting a cure for the curse on the House of Atreus. In Goethe's version of the drama, it turns out that an ambiguity in the wording of the oracle reveals that it is the sister of Orest, Iphigenie, who is presumed to have died at Aulis, and not the goddess , who must be returned home. That intention of an eventual homecoming is hinted at in the famous opening lines spoken by Iphigenie to indicate her deepest desire: Denn ach! mich trennt das Meer von den Geliebten, Und an dem Ufer steh' ich lange Tage, Das Land der Griechen mit der Seele suchend. (10-12) This longing for home, which has inspired illustrations of Goethe's highly romanticized version of the classical drama—notably in the famous painting by Anselm Feuerbach—provides a central theme in both Euripides and Goethe, which offsets the complex imperative for a cure to the blood curse that oppresses Orestes to the point of madness. It is the manner of this cure that constitutes the most singular revision (among many!) introduced by Goethe to his version of the drama. The following essay will attempt to shed new light on this remarkable achievement and to argue that Goethe thus anticipates a central feature of modern drama, above all in the conscious adaptation of ancient myth and legend in accord with psychological processes that take place on the stage. It may seem questionable to claim that Goethe's Lphigenie auf Tauris is a drama currently known in this country only to specialists. It was certainly not always the case. During the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth this work stood...

Legend designs for noninteractive cartographic animations

For most cartographic presentations legends are an important tool for the interpretation of cartographically coded information. Rules and principles exist to support an appropriate legend design for traditional paper maps. New technologies of information presentation, such as animation or VRML, offer new forms of cartography and also require legend information. For that reason, traditional legend designs have to be adapted to new forms of cartographic presentations. Traditional design rules have to be extended. To achieve this, principles of human cognition are analyzed. Results of analysis are used to propose different legends for the explanation of topographic objects within a cartographic animation. The examples are introduced and discussed.

Alexandreis by Waiter of Châtillon (review)

running head waiter of châtillon, Alexandreis, a verse translation by David Townsend. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1996. Pp. xxix, 214. isbn: 0-8122-3347-6. $37-50. Walter ofChâtillon's Alexandreis, an epic poem composed in Latin between 1171 and 1181, was for a long time part of the canon in grammatical studies, at the same level as the classic masterpieces. With Colkers critical edition (1978) and Pritchard's prose translation (1986), it started again to attract the attention ofscholars and students of medieval literature. We now have David Townsend's new translation in blank verses, which proposes 'to afford the general anglophone reader a satisfying literary experience of the poem' (xxii). The image ofAlexander the Great (356-323 b.c.) transmitted throughout the ages is an amazing combination of facts and legends. Of the predominantly historical records kept by his contemporaries (Cleitarchus, Ptolomy, Aristobulos, Callisthenes, among others), only fragments remain. It was mostly on Cleitarchus that Quintus Curtius Rufus based his Latin biography (circa 50 a.d.), which in turn becameWalter's main source. Shortly after 1180—and thus roughly at the same time as the Alexandreis—the Old French Roman d'Alexandre, initiated much earlier by Alberic de Briançon and Lambert Ie Tort, was completed and recast in its final form byAlexandre de Paris. Its origin can be traced to the Greek Romance ofAlexander (Egypt, 3rd century ce.), amply disseminated through its Latin translations. These two major poems of 12thcentury France nicely complement each other as different views ofAlexander, the Alexandreis being more factual and the Roman d'Alexandre wildly fantastic. This is not to say that Walter's account remained immune to legend; it incorporated, for instance, the visit ofthe Amazon Thalestris, retained by the usually skeptical Curtius, as well as a number ofelements from the legendary tradition leading to the Roman d'Alexandre, such as the reference to Nectanebus. Also present, with lesser emphasis, are some ofthe amusing anecdotes which, to Plutarch, seemed 'to reveal far more of a man's character than the mere fact ofwinning battles' (ParallelLives—Alexander ?). Plutarch also tells of Alexander's intellectual curiosity and readiness to perform experiments, supposedly stimulated by Aristotle, when confronted with the exotic natural phenomena observed in his Asian expedition. This aspect is treated in a surrealistic fashion in the legends, being the most fascinating part of the Roman d'Alexandre. In the Alexandreis, the hero's hubris prods him to lay open Nature's secrets (x.10). Writing in Latin and modestly comparing his efforts to Virgil's in his Prologue, it was only natural that Walter should also adapt epic scenes from the Aeneid. The style used to describe individual participations in the course of battles between armies reflects this influence (e.g., Pallas in Virgil and Fidias in Walter). The personified Nature's appeal to Leviathan to detain Alexander and Leviathan's fear that the king is the New Man fated to harrow Hell, combines classic and Christian allusions: Juno's call to the fury Allecto in Virgil (also Ceres sending Fames to punish Erysichthon in Ovid's Metamorphoses) and Satan's predicament in the Decensus Christi ad Inferos arthuriana (part ofthe apocryphal Evangelium Nicodemi). Ofpurely Biblical origin is the explicit reference to the Book ofDaniel (8:20—21) to announce that a Greek should destroy the Persian empire. Walter's narrative is interesting and sometimes truly epic. One verse lingers in our memory: the proverbial 'incidís in Scyllam cupiens vitare Charybdim' [You fall to Scyllawhile you shun Charybdis (5.350)] . Not even an anachronic reference to Arthur is missing (7.457). All in all, I enjoyed reading Townsend's translation, which strives for literary quality, but never allows the self-imposed adherence to poetical conventions to obscure meaning. antonio 1. furtado Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro ...

La escultura románica y sus problemas de interpretación: el llamado sepulcro «de Mudarra» procedente del Monasterio de San Pedro de Arlanza

The legendary traditions created in monasteries during the Middle Ages and revitalized in modern times have often led to mistaken interpretations of their oldest remains, both architectural and in the minor arts. One of these remains is the mural monument today in the cloister of the Cathedral of Burgos and originally from the Monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza. Known as the «Tomb of Mudarra» (hero of the County of Castilla), in the traditional historiography it came to be considered a work of the early Romanesque or even a falsification from the seventeenth century. This article attempts to delve into the process by which the mural monument acquired its mythic meaning. A stylistic analysis will resituate the mural monument in the historical context of the late Romanesque in which it was created.

‘By this mark you shall know him’: clerical celibacy and Antichrist in English Reformation polemic

‘Antichrist’, wrote William Tyndale in 1528, ‘is not an outward thyng, that is to say a man that should sode[n]ly appeare with wonders as our fathers talked of him. No, verely, for Antichrist is a spirituall thing. And this is as much to say as agaynst Christ, ye one that preacheth against Christ.’ Such a definition of Antichrist marked a departure from the traditional medieval legend, which was based upon the prophecy of a single future figure of evil. This new image of Antichrist as a permanent and spiritual presence in the world is a central feature of English Protestant polemic, informing interpretations of both biblical prophecies, and the history of the Church. It was not history which engendered right understanding of Scripture, but Scripture that offered the means of interpreting the past. The Bible offered paradigms for the understanding of history because it was the embodiment of divine truth, which was irreproachable and immutable. In the words of John Bale, ‘yet is the text a light to the chronicles, and not the chronicles to the text’.

Allegories of Victorian Thermodynamics

Allegories of Victorian Thermodynamics Bruce Clarke (bio) I. Maxwell and Allegory In The Crying of Lot 49, Yoyodyne engineer Stanley Koteks turns Oedipa Maas on to the existence of the Nefastis Machine—Thomas Pynchon’s postmodern spoof of nineteenth-century perpetual-motion engines and of their theological analogues, the ghostly claims of various Victorian spiritualists.1 In a sort of séance with the device, the operator of the Nefastis Machine uses telepathy with a Maxwell’s Demon to finesse the mechanical dissipation mandated by the second law of thermodynamics: From a drawer he produced a Xeroxed wad of papers, showing a box with a sketch of a bearded Victorian on its outside, and coming out of the top two pistons attached to a crankshaft and flywheel. “Who’s that with the beard?” asked Oedipa. James Clerk Maxwell, explained Koteks, a famous Scotch scientist who had once postulated a tiny intelligence, known as Maxwell’s Demon. . . . He went on to tell how the Nefastis Machine contained an honest-to-God Maxwell’s Demon. All you had to [End Page 67] do was stare at the photo of Clerk Maxwell, and concentrate on which cylinder, right or left, you wanted the Demon to raise the temperature in. . . . The familiar Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge photo, showing Maxwell in right profile, seemed to work best. 2 Transporting Maxwell’s Demon to the modern conceptual threshold between the sciences of energy and information by invoking the analogy between Ludwig Boltzmann’s statistical equation for thermodynamic entropy and C. E. Shannon’s equation for information-entropy, 3 Nefastis tries to explain to Oedipa how the dual dynamisms of entropy drive his machine. It operates, says Nefastis, by the literalization of a metaphor: “Help,” said Oedipa, “you’re not reaching me.” “Entropy is a figure of speech, then,” sighed Nefastis, “a metaphor. It connects the world of thermodynamics to the world of information flow. The Machine uses both. The demon makes the metaphor not only verbally graceful, but also objectively true.” “But what,” she felt like some kind of heretic, “if the Demon exists only because the two equations look alike? Because of the metaphor?” Nefastis smiled; imperturbable, calm, a believer. “He existed for Clerk Maxwell long before the days of the metaphor.” But had Clerk Maxwell been such a fanatic about his Demon’s reality? (p. 106) The undetermined reality of the demon is precisely to the point. Nefastis is parodically un-Maxwellian, if not un-Victorian, in giving the demon a literal existence. Maxwell’s own attitude toward his physical models was more skeptical. The success of his science depended in part on his rhetorical sophistication in allowing hypothetical models to remain metaphors. 4 At the same time, Nefastis is [End Page 68] right: despite efforts to exorcise it, the demon still possesses virtual existence as an active scientific trope, a productive conceptual operator. William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, began a tradition of reification by naming as a “demon” the fictive intelligence that Maxwell had conceived in 1867 simply as a “neat-fingered being.” Maxwell was not entirely happy with this stark anthropomorphism, and in subsequent correspondence with others he attempted to demote the creature from intelligent to mechanical action. The simplicity of its function “reduces the demon to a valve,” he explained to Peter Guthrie Tait in an undated note; in an 1870 letter to John William Strutt the demon is “a mere guiding agent (like a pointsman on a railway with perfectly acting switches . . . ). I do not see why even intelligence might not be dispensed with and the thing made self-acting.” 5 Despite Maxwell’s skepticism, Thomson’s name “demon” was an inspired rhetorical choice. The demon’s position at a threshold between distinct spaces conforms to legendary traditions. As updated in literary theory, the daemonic in general is a mythopoetic code for uncertain intermediations—the uncanny or disruptive supplement, the noise or excess infecting or reorganizing transmission in matters of reason, cognition, writing, self-identity, desire, and so forth.6 Not an essential power but a differential effect, a knot or loop produced by and lodged within writing itself, tied into the text of any structural system...

Le mythe de Bellérophon chez Pindare

The XIIIth Olympian provides an outstanding example of Pindar's skill in adapting the myth to the main theme of his epinicy, which is the praise of Corinth through the Olympian victor Xenophon, with the choice of a secondary but important event, with the story built upon legendary traditions and local cults and developed through successive short scenes and with the morality hinted at. The hero embodies the noblest aspects of Corinthian ideals and illustrates the mastery of this city in the art of horsemanship.

Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage, and Survival

In this traditional Alaskan legend, two old women abandoned by their migrating tribe refuse to die in the wilderness. They irritate each other, snap and snarl as they struggle for survival, in this testament to the resilience of older women

United Mine Workers of America: Centennial Conference

The coal fields have been the setting for some of the most legendary traditions of class conflict in American labor history. Dishonest and irregular pay, child and convict labor, mine disasters and black lung, repression of unions and the suffocating paternalism of the company towns ?these have been among the more potent symbols of labor exploitation in industrial America. Relatedly, the mining regions have yielded an unmatched legacy of labor militancy and solidarity, embodied most enduringly in the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA). The recent, hard-fought Pittston strike illustrates how alive and immediate this history remains in the coal fields today. On October 18-20, 1990, approximately one hundred people, primarily labor historians and UMWA officials, gathered at Penn State University to mark the union's centenary and to evaluate its history and current prospects. UMWA President Richard Trumka set the tone with his keynote address, World to Win: A New Unionism for the '90s. In order to remain vital, he argued, the labor movement needs to redefine the meaning of unionism, to expand beyond the workplace to confront the community needs ? social, financial, legal, etc. ? of its members as well. But in doing so, he added, the unions must not shed their traditional commitments to workplace issues and social justice and become mere purveyors of credit cards and travel services. It is both a moral and a strategic imperative that the unions reconcile their roles at the workplace and in the community, for working people pursue empowerment in both realms. Trumka turned next to the new proletariat of service in offices, hospitals, and the like. He called on the labor movement to reject the assumption that these workers cannot be organized, likening such thinking to that of the American Federation of leaders regarding industrial workers during the 1930s. Finally, Trumka noted the response of white working people in Louisiana to the racist populism of U.S. Senate candidate David Duke. Liberals, he observed, tend to denounce the racism and move on; the challenge of the labor movement is to address the economic distress and political disaffection that make struggling white workers susceptible to Duke's demogoguery. Labor is the only entity in America capable of challenging American racism at its roots, Trumka concluded.