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This text explores classic works such as the Song of Songs to reveal the cultural energies that ancient mythmakers sought to corral in their creations. Leeming suggests that myth and factual knowledge do not negate, but complement each other.
Hercules, Zeus, Thor, Gilgamesh--these are the figures that leap to mind when we think of myth. But to David Leeming, myths are more than stories of deities and fantastic beings from non-Christian cultures. Myth is at once the most particular and the most universal feature of civilization, representing common concerns that each society voices in its own idiom. Whether an Egyptian story of creation or the big-bang theory of modern physics, myth is metaphor, mirroring our deepest sense of ourselves in relation to existence itself. Now, in The World of Myth, Leeming provides a sweeping anthology of myths, ranging from ancient Egypt and Greece to the Polynesian islands and modern science. We rea...
Nearly every belief system in every part of the world has its own distinctive answers to how the world was created, often taking the form of a story or myth. These narratives offer insight into a culture's values, its world view, and its interpretations of the relationship between the individual, society, and the divine.
James Baldwin was one of the great writers of the last century. In works that have become part of the American canon—Go Tell It on a Mountain, Giovanni’s Room, Another Country, The Fire Next Time, and The Evidence of Things Not Seen—he explored issues of race and racism in America, class distinction, and sexual difference. A gay, African American writer who was born in Harlem, he found the freedom to express himself living in exile in Paris. When he returned to America to cover the Civil Rights movement, he became an activist and controversial spokesman for the movement, writing books that became bestsellers and made him a celebrity, landing him on the cover of Time. In this biography,...
Meet the supreme Gautama Buddha, the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesa, and Chang O--the Lunar Toad who is Chinese goddess of the Moon. Journey to the sacred Cambodian ruins of Angkor and golden Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. Discover myths like the Stone and the Banana of Indonesian origin and the Indian Churning of the Ocean of Milk, and explore archetypal themes such as the hero quest, sacrifice, and descent to the underworld. Myth expert David Leeming plumbs the exotic depths of Eastern spirituality to present a vivid portrait of the many mythologies of the Asian continent. In handy A to Z format, here are the stories of the revered deities, sacred places, key events and epics, and r...
Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1Baldwin’s life was devoted to exposing the American nation’s moral failure and the power of love to revive it. He was not a conceited man, but he saw himself as a kind of savior. #2 James’s stepfather, the Reverend David Baldwin, was a perfect example of a subservient wage earner. He was a preacher who had been prevented from providing his family with what they needed most: their birthright and their identity as individuals rather than as members of a race. #3 The family’s poverty and oppression was made worse by the presence of a black parody of the white Great God Almighty. His stepfather made fun of his eyes and called him the ugliest child he had ever seen, and his mother had the same eyes and mouth as he did, so he assumed she was ugly. #4 Baldwin’s stepfather, David, was a black man who had been mistreated by white people. He was a model for the many fictional brothers who suffered at the hands of the white law in Baldwin’s books.
Illustrating their points with materials ranging from the prehistoric cave paintings to the mystic Jewish Kabbalah, from the ancient Indians Vedas to tales of the North American Indians and other myths from around the world, Leeming and Page reveals the changing mask of the male divine.
With her repulsive face and head full of living, venomous snakes, Medusa is petrifying—quite literally, since looking directly at her turned people to stone. Ever since Perseus cut off her head and presented it to Athena, she has been a woman of many forms: a dangerous female monster that had to be destroyed, an erotic power that could annihilate men, and, thanks to Freud, a woman whose hair was a nest of terrifying penises that signaled castration. She has been immortalized by artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Salvador Dalí and was the emblem of the Jacobins after the French Revolution. Today, she’s viewed by feminists as a noble victim of patriarchy and used by Versace in the designer...
David Leeming and Jake Page gather some seventy-five of the most potent and meaningful of these tales in an extraordinary rich and readable introduction of this divine figure as she has emerged from prehistory to the present.
Presents a variety of myths, tales, and legends. Includes Native American tales about creation, goddesses, trickster gods, the Indian and the white man, as well as Hispanic American, Asian American, Anglo American, and African American stories. Features patriotic heroes, American loners, frontiersman, and tall tales, Western outlaws, lawmen, and cowboys, slave rebels, and Blues legends, among other topics.