Orphism

Many recent discoveries have confirmed the importance of Orphism for ancient Greek religion, philosophy, and literature. However, its nature and role are still very controversial. The key problem of its relationship to Christianity has been discussed by ancient and modern authors from many different viewpoints, albeit too often tainted with apologetic interests and unconscious projections. This free and thorough study of the ancient sources sheds light on these questions and illuminates the complexity of the encounter between Classical culture and Jewish-Christian tradition. New perspectives on the relationship between Classical and Jewish-Christian culture On the avowed subject of Orphism Author is specialist within the field.

The complex matter of Orphism has so far been addressed by scholars through studies focusing on one of its components each time, primarily the Derveni Papyrus and the Gold Tablets while the text of the Orphic Rhapsodies has remained under-examined mostly due to its fragmentary nature and the lack of a reconstruction. This book brings all of the major components of Orphism together in one study, in this way highlighting both parallels and divergences between them, and a wide range of non-Orphic sources referring to Orphic practices, beliefs and texts. For the complete analysis of the Orphic Rhapsodies a reconstruction of the text was necessary, which is included in this book along with a commentary and translation. This work proposes a new definition of Orphism and it can constitute a whole-encompassing and concise guide for scholars and students interested in Orphism. The reconstruction of the Orphic Rhapsodies could also contribute on shifting the understanding of this work to new perspectives as it demonstrates that the Orphic Rhapsodies was a more complex text rather than a single continuous theogonic narrative as has been approached up to this date.

In a paradigm shift, this book redefines Orphism as a polemical label for extra-ordinary religion, good or bad.

During the years before his death in 1918 Apollinaire?s reputation as poet and artistic animateur approached legendary proportions. This book is the first to present an extensive reassessment of Apollinaire?s role in the promotion of themes and iconography amongst his painter friends. Detailed analysis of the poetic subject matter of selected works of Dufy, Delaunay, de Chirico, Laurencin, Marcoussis, Metzinger, Picabia and Picasso is used to reconstruct the responses of these artists to Apollinaire?s artistic and aesthetic proclivities. Drawing attention to the poet?s immersion in the art and iconography of the French late-Renaissance and the seventeenth century, Adrian Hicken shows that the study of the permeation of Apollinairean and Orphic imagery in the work of artists with very different personalities presents a fascinating and pivotal episode in the history of Parisian modernism.

This book examines Orpheus as a figure who bridges the experience of the Greek tribal shaman and the modern poet Stéphane Mallarmé, the father of modernism. First mentioned in 600 B.C., Orpheus was present at the moment when the Apolline forms of western culture were being encoded. He appears again at the opposite moment embodied in the language-crisis at the end of the nineteenth century, which inaugurated the break-up of those forms and ushered in the Dionysian. Mallarmé's "Orphic Moment," when Orpheus's scattered limbs first begin to stir back to life, enacts a dance at the boundary of Apollo and Dionysos, marking the collapse of Apolline form back into its Dionysian ground in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.

The hatching of the Cosmic Egg, the swallowing of Phanes by Zeus, and the murder of Dionysus by the Titans were just a few of the many stories that appeared in ancient Greek epic poems that were thought to have been written by the legendary singer Orpheus. Most of this poetry is now lost, surviving only in the form of brief quotations by Greek philosophers. Orphic Tradition and the Birth of the Gods brings together the scattered fragments of four Orphic theogonies: the Derveni, Eudemian, Hieronyman, and Rhapsodic theogonies. Typically, theogonies are thought to be poetic accounts of the creation of the universe and the births of the gods, leading to the creation of humans and the establishment of the present state of the cosmos. The most famous example is Hesiod's Theogony, which unlike the Orphic theogonies has survived. But did Orphic theogonies look anything like Hesiod's Theogony? Meisner applies a new theoretical model for studying Orphic theogonies and suggests certain features that characterize them as different from Hesiod: the blending of Near Eastern narrative elements that are missing in Hesiod; the probability that these were short hymns, more like the Homeric Hymnsr than Hesiod; and the continuous discourse between myth and philosophy that can be seen in Orphic poems and the philosophers who quote them. Most importantly, this book argues that the Orphic myths of Phanes emerging from the Cosmic Egg and Zeus swallowing Phanes are at least as important as the well-known myth of Dionysus being dismembered by the Titans, long thought to have been the central myth of Orphism. As this book amply demonstrates, Orphic literature was a diverse and ever-changing tradition by which authors were able to think about the most current philosophical ideas through the medium of the most traditional poetic forms.

Examines new methodologies used in the study of these tablets. Includes an updated edition and translation of the tablet texts.

Many recent discoveries have confirmed the importance of Orphism for ancient Greek religion, philosophy and literature. Its nature and role are still, however, among the most debated problems of Classical scholarship. A cornerstone of the question is its relationship to Christianity, which modern authors have too often discussed from apologetic perspectives or projections of the Christian model into its supposed precedent. Besides, modern approaches are strongly based on ancient ones, since Orpheus and the poems and mysteries attributed to him were fundamental in the religious controversies of Late Antiquity. Both Pagan and Christian authors often present Orphism as a precedent, alternative or imitation of Chistianity. This free and thorough study of the ancient sources sheds light on these controversial questions. The presence of the Orphic tradition in Imperial Age, documented by literary and epigraphical evidence, is confronted with the informations transmitted by Christian apologists on Orphic poems and cults. The manifold Christian treatments of Pagan sources, and their particular value to understand Greek religion, are illuminated by this specific case, which exemplifies the complex encounter between Classical culture and Jewish-Christian tradition.