The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781107164260)

This book offers a new interpretation of ancient Greek sacrifice from a cultural poetic perspective. Through close readings of the Theogony, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, and the Odyssey in conjunction with evidence from material culture, it demonstrates how sacrifice narratives in early Greek hexameter poetry are intimately connected to a mythic-poetic discourse referred to as the 'politics of the belly'. This mythic-poetic discourse presents sacrifice as a site of symbolic conflict between the male stomach and female womb for both mortals and immortals. Ultimately, the book argues that the ritual of sacrifice operates as a cultural mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal ideology not just in early Greek hexameter, but throughout Greek cultural history.

Author: Charles H. Stocking
ISBN-10: 1107164265
ISBN-13: 9781107164260
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 03/30/2017
Pages: 208
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.94lbs
Size: 9.39h x 6.34w x 0.70d