Plato the Myth Maker - Hardcover

Brisson, Luc

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226075184 ISBN 13: 9780226075181

Verlag: University of Chicago Press, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

One thinks of a myth as a fictional story, and Plato was the first to use the term "muthos" in that sense. But Plato also used "muthos" to describe the practice of making and telling myths, the oral transmission of all that a community keeps in its collective memory. In the first part of this text, Luc Brisson reconstructs Plato's multifaceted and not uncritical description of "muthos" in light of the latter's famous Atlantis story. The second part of the book contrasts this sense of myth, as Plato does, with another form of speech which he believed was far superior: the "logos" of philosophy. Brisson's work is part lexical, part philosophical, and part ethnological, and Gerard Naddaf's introduction shows the originality and importance both of Brisson's method and of Plato's analysis in the context of contemporary debates over the origin and evolution of the oral tradition.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Luc Brisson is director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France. He is the author of several books including Plato the Mythmaker, published in English by the University of Chicago Press. Catherine Tihanyi, a research associate at Western Washington University, has translated a number of books for the University of Chicago Press, including Adam Biro's Two Jews on a Train.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

We think of myth as a fictional story, and Plato was the first to use the term muthos in that sense. But Plato also used muthos to describe the practice of making and telling stories, the oral transmission of all that a community keeps in its collective memory. In the first part of Plato the Myth Maker, Luc Brisson reconstructs Plato's multifaceted and not uncritical description of muthos in light of the latter's famous Atlantis story. The second part of the book contrasts this sense of myth, as Plato does, with another form of speech that he believed was far superior: the logos of philosophy. Appearing for the first time in English, Plato the Myth Maker is a solid and important contribution to the history of myth, based on the privileged testimony of one of its most influential critics and supporters.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of Chicago Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0226075184
• ISBN 13: 9780226075181
• Einband: Tapa dura
• Anzahl der Seiten: 244
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar