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The Early Greek Concept of the Soul
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Jan N. Bremmer
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2020
About this book
Jan Bremmer presents a provocative picture of the historical development of beliefs regarding the soul in ancient Greece. He argues that before Homer the Greeks distinguished between two types of soul, both identified with the individual: the free soul, which possessed no psychological attributes and was active only outside the body, as in dreams, swoons, and the afterlife; and the body soul, which endowed a person with life and consciousness. Gradually this concept of two kinds of souls was replaced by the idea of a single soul. In exploring Greek ideas of human souls as well as those of plants and animals, Bremmer illuminates an important stage in the genesis of the Greek mind.
Author / Editor information
Jan N. Bremmer is Professor of the History of Religion at the Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen, Holland.
Reviews
"Since Erwin Rohde published Psyche in 1893, the theme of the soul and its relation to life before and after the death of the body has interested scholars of ancient Greek religion. Jan Bremmer's contribution to the discussion is likely to become definitive, for its conclusions as well as its procedures. . . . For such a brief book it is unusually clear and comprehensive in its treatment and thorough in its examination of primary sources. It extracts Greek materials from the hands of specialists to situate them in the broad context of humanistic study."---Larry J. Alderink, Journal of the History of Religions
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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Contents
vii -
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Acknowledgments
ix -
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Abbreviations
xi -
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ONE. THE SOUL
1 -
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TWO. THE SOUL OF THE LIVING
13 -
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THREE. THE SOUL OF THE DEAD
70 -
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Appendix One. The Soul of Plants and Animals
125 -
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Appendix Two. The Wandering Soul in Western European Folk Tradition
132 -
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Selected Bibliography
137 -
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Index of Passages
141 -
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General Index
145 -
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MYTHOS: The Princeton/Bollingen Series in World Mythology
155
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
March 24, 2021
eBook ISBN:
9780691219356
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9780691219356
Keywords for this book
On the Soul; Consciousness; Ancient Greece; Metempsychosis; Western Europe; Empedocles; Classics; Walter Burkert; Explanation; Secularization; Animal soul; Aristeas; Keres (mythology); Mrs.; Etymology; Anthesteria; Burial; Herodotus; Gregory Nagy; S. (Dorst novel); Archaic Greece; Richard Buxton (botanist); The Dissertation; Hospitality; Poetry; Dionysus; Bernard Knox; Paul the Deacon; Handkerchief; Kraut; Cremation; Oral tradition; V.; Center for Hellenic Studies; Philosopher; Moralia; Mourning; Soul; Odysseus; Psychology; Clytemnestra; Greek mythology; Manuscript; Understanding; Psychai; Laughter; Scythians; G. (novel); Suicide; Shamanism; Illustration; Archaeology; Devotio; Vegetable; Reincarnation; Hesiod; Strabo; Diodorus Siculus; Sophocles; Gello; Unconsciousness; Endocannibalism; Guntram; The Philosopher; Pythagoreanism; Zenobius; Deucalion; The House of Hades; Writing; Central Asia
Audience(s) for this book
For a non-specialist adult audience
