Present Books As The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History
| Original Title: | Le mythe de l'eternel retour: Archétypes et répetition |
| ISBN: | 0691017778 (ISBN13: 9780691017778) |
| Edition Language: | English |
Mircea Eliade
Paperback | Pages: 195 pages Rating: 4.23 | 2399 Users | 116 Reviews
Particularize Containing Books The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History
| Title | : | The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History |
| Author | : | Mircea Eliade |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Princeton/Bollingen paperback printing |
| Pages | : | Pages: 195 pages |
| Published | : | November 21st 1971 by Princeton University Press (first published 1949) |
| Categories | : | Philosophy. Religion. Nonfiction. Fantasy. Mythology. History. Anthropology |
Description Concering Books The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History
This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-86). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures & drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's "The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible & compelling the religious expressions & activities of a wide variety of archaic & "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human.Rating Containing Books The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History
Ratings: 4.23 From 2399 Users | 116 ReviewsCrit Containing Books The Myth of the Eternal Return or, Cosmos and History
I found the framework idea of the Archaic thoroughly interesting, though the most valuable section of the book is in the conclusion, where Eliade discusses the consequences for societies that have abandoned the Archaic worldview.
Francis Fukuyama was a fool. More below. Eliade once again gets to the heart of the problem, the same question children have and adults somehow figure out to live with: how to deal with YOLO (You only live once). In the course of his exposition of the approach of archaic man he blows up a few major Christian myths (not directly, but just as the logical conclusion of what he finds, similar to Joseph Campbell), but ends up with the need for a belief in God somehow anyway. But back to Francis
This was one of those used book shop discoveries. I found it very interesting and vindicating in a way to confirm my thoughts and perceptions about cycles, myths, rituals and history. There were A LOT of big words that required frequent use of a dictionary. It made for deep, interesting reading on those bus commutes for my life in the repetitive mundane.
"Among countless stones, one stone becomes sacred - and hence instantly becomes saturated with being . . . because it commemorates a mythical act . . ." --Eliade, p. 4
I read this book at nearly the perfect time, with a great percentage being undertaken around a Christmas/New Year holiday. The great thing about this book is that it provides a new lens to interpret our own lives while making 'ancient' cultural practices legible, and occasionally more familiar than the relations which we nominally live under. The primary question this book tackles is: how do we live with respect to history, the events which happen to us? This volume provides four choices:* to
Eliade describes and interprets various archaic notions of time and history based on his wide reading in mythology, anthropology and religion. In the latter part of the book, he comments on some modern conceptions of history, including the Christian and the Hegelian.In his Preface, Eliade writes "I consider it the most significant of my books; and when I am asked in what order they should be read, I always recommend beginning with Cosmos and History.The style is scholarly, dense with references
0 Comments:
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.