Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives

Scholars of classical history and literature have far more than a century accepted "initiation" as a tool for understanding a variety of obscure rituals and myths, ranging from the ancient Greek wedding and adolescent haircutting rituals to initiatory motifs or structures in Greek myth, comedy and tragedy. In this book, an international group of experts critique many of these past studies, and challenge strongly the tradition of privileging the concept of initiation as a tool for studying social performances and literary texts, in which changes in status or group membership occur in unusual ways.

ISBN	0415289203	Pages	320
ISBN13	9780415289207 (What's this?)	Volumes	1
Publisher	Taylor & Francis Ltd	Weight (grammes)	621
Imprint	Routledge	Published in	London
Format	Hardback	Height (mm)	234
Publication date	27 Mar 2003	Width (mm)	156
Library of Congress	DE71	Spine width (mm)	23
DEWEY	292.08	Academic level	Undergraduate, Postgraduate, Professional / Scholarly
DEWEY edition	DC22

	List of figures and tables
	List of contributors
	Preface
	Acknowledgements
	List of abbreviations and transliterations
Pt. I	Introduction	1
1	Initiation: a concept with a troubled history by Fritz Graf	3
Pt. II	Female initiations	25
2	What kind of rite of passage was the Ancient Greek wedding? by Gloria Ferrari	27
3	Playing the bear and the fawn for Artemis: female initiation or substitute sacrifice? by Christopher A. Faraone	43
Pt. III	Vidal-Naquet's Black Hunter	69
4	Adolescent initiation in myth and tragedy: rethinking the Black Hunter by David B. Dodd	71
5	Liminality as metaphor: initiation and the frontiers of Ancient Athens by Irene Polinskaya	85
Pt. IV	Initiation and the male community	107
6	Adolescent hair-growing and hair-cutting rituals in Ancient Greece: a sociological approach by David D. Leitao	109
7	Striding across boundaries: Hermes and Aphrodite as gods of initiation by Nanno Marinatos	130
Pt. V	Initiation and narrative patterns	153
8	"Initiation" in myth; "initiation" in practice: the Homeric Hymn to Hermes and its performative context by Sarah Iles Johnston	155
9	Who in hell is Heracles? Dionysus' disastrous disguise in Aristophanes' Frogs by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III	181
Pt. VI	The initiation of ritual experts	201
10	Evenius becomes a seer (Herodotus 9.93-5): a paradoxical initiation? by Cristiano Grottanelli	203
11	The initiation of the magician: transition and power in Graeco-Roman Ritual by Ian Moyer	219
	More...

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Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives

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