The Politics of Sacrifice in Early Greek Myth and Poetry

Description

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. Contents......Page 5 Illustrations......Page 7 Acknowledgements......Page 8 Note on Abbreviations......Page 10 Introduction. The Paradox of Sacrifice and the Politics of Feasting......Page 11 Anger and Honorary Shares. The Promethean Division Revisited......Page 37 Sacrifice, Succession and the Politics of Patriarchy......Page 65 The Desire of a God. Semiotic Sacrifice and Patriarchal Identity in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes......Page 100 Cities where Men Sacrifice. Odysseus Returns to the Fatherland......Page 129 Conclusion. Sacrificial Narrative and the Politics of the Belly......Page 166 Bibliography......Page 183 Index Locorum......Page 203 Subject Index......Page 207