The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in Cultural Context

Son of a mortal king and an immortal Muse, Orpheus possessed a gift for music unmatched among humans; with his lyre he could turn the course of rivers, drown the fatal song of the Sirens, and charm the denizens of the underworld. The allure of his music speaks through the myths and stories of the Greeks and Romans, who tell of his mysterious compositions, with lyrics that only the initiated could understand after undergoing secret rites. Where readers of subsequent centuries have been content to understand these mysteries as the stuff of obfuscation or mere folderol, Marcel Detienne finds in the writing of Orpheus a key to the thinking of the ancient Greeks. A profound understanding of ancient Greek myth in its cultural contexts allows Detienne to recover a cultural system from fragments and ephemera-to reproduce, with sensitivity to variation and nuance, the full richness of the mythological repertoire flowing from the writing of Orpheus. His investigation moves from the Orphic writings to broader mysteries: how Greek gods became myths, how myths informed later religious thinking, and how myths have come into play in polemics between competing religions. An eloquent answer to some of the most vexing questions about the myth of Orpheus and its far-reaching ramifications through time and culture, Detienne's work ultimately offers a major rethinking of Greek mythology.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Author's Note Translator's Note Preface to the English-Language EditionPART I: From Myth to Mythology1. The Genealogy of a Body of Thought 2. What the Greeks Called "Myth" 3. Mythology, Writing and Forms of Historicity 4. The Practices on Myth-AnalysisPart II: Does Mythology Have a Sex?5. The Danaids among Themselves: Marriage Founded 6. A Kitchen Garden for Women, or How to Engender on One's Own 7. Misogynous Hestia, or the City in Its Autonomy 8. Even Talk Is in Some Ways DivinePART III: Between the Labyrinth and the Overturned Table9. An Ephebe and an Olive Tree 10. The Craine and the Labyrinth 11. The Finger of Orestes 12. At Lycaon's TablePART IV: Writing Mythology13. An Inventive Writing, the Voice of Orpheus, and the Games of Palamedes 14. The Double Writing of Mythology (between the Timaeus and the Critias) 15. Orpheus Rewrites the City GodsNotes Select Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Marcel Detienne is the Basil L. Gildersleeve Professor of Classics at the Johns Hopkins University. He is the author of L'Invention de la mythologie, Dionysos a ciel ouvert, Les Jardins d'Adonis, and many other books and articles, and editor of Transcrire les mythologies.

Review :
Dazzling display of erudition and sometimes brilliant insights... Advanced students of mythology will find illumination in these pages. -- Penelope Murray Journal of Classics Teaching Anyone with an interest in either the theory of myth interpretation or any of the particular mythic complexes Detienne engages will find this a fascinating and provocative book. -- Radcliffe G. Edmonds III Bryn Mawr Classical Review