Epiphanies and Dreams in Greek Polytheism: Textual Genres and 'Reality' from Homer to Heliodorus - Hardcover

by Michael Lipka (Author)

While modern students of Greek religion are alert to the occasion-boundedness of epiphanies and divinatory dreams in Greek polytheism, they are curiously indifferent to the generic parameters of the relevant textual representations on which they build their argument. Instead, generic questions are normally left to the literary critic, who in turn is less interested in religion. To evaluate the relation of epiphanies and divinatory dreams to Greek polytheism, the book investigates relevant representations through all major textual genres in pagan antiquity. The evidence of the investigated genres suggests that the 'epiphany-mindedness' of the Greeks, postulated by most modern critics, is largely an academic chimaera, a late-comer of Christianizing 19th-century-scholarship. It is primarily founded on a misinterpretation of Homer's notorious anthropomorphism (in the Iliad and Odyssey but also in the Homeric Hymns). This anthropomorphism, which is keenly absorbed by Greek drama and figural art, has very little to do with the religious lifeworld experience of the ancient Greeks, as it appears in other genres. By contrast, throughout all textual genres investigated here, divinatory dreams are represented as an ordinary and real part of the ancient Greeks' lifeworld experience.

Back Jacket

This book investigates representations in Greek texts of epiphanies and divinatory dreams from a generic perspective in pagan antiquity. Its ultimate aim is to evaluate the relation of such religious 'visual' phenomena to the real lifeworld in Greek polytheism. It argues that the 'epiphany-mindedness' of the Greeks, postulated by most modern critics, is largely founded on a misinterpretation by Christianizing 19th-century-scholarship of Homer's notorious anthropomorphism. This anthropomorphism, which is keenly absorbed by Greek drama and figural art, has very little to do with the real lifeworld experience of the ancient Greeks as it appears in other genres. By contrast, divinatory dreams form part and parcel of the ancient Greeks' lifeworld and as such pervade all textual genres investigated here.

Author Biography

Michael Lipka, University of Patras, Greece.