Myth of the Eternal Return: Or, Cosmos And History - Couverture souple

Eliade, Mircea

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0140191771 ISBN 13 : 9780140191776

Editeur : Penguin, 1989

Synopsis

The author's thesis is that ancient man envisaged events not as constituting a linear, progressive history, but simply as so many creative responses to primordial archetypes. The renowned author has also written "Shamanism" and "Yoga".

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian emigre-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's "The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.

Biographie de l'auteur

Eliade was educated as a philosopher. He published extensively in the history of religions and acted as editor-in-chief of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Religion. The influence of his thought, through these works and through thirty years as director of History of Religions department at the University of Chicago, is considerable. Eliade's analysis of religion assumes the existence of "the sacred" as the object of worship of religious humanity. It appears as the source of power, significance, and value. Humanity apprehends "hierophanies"--physical manifestations or revelations of the sacred--often, but not only, in the form of symbols, myths, and ritual. Any phenomenal entity is a potential hierophany and can give access to non-historical time: what Eliade calls illud tempus (Latin for 'that time,' I tend to think of it as 'yon time'). The apprehension of this sacred time is a constitutive feature of the religious aspect of humanity.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Penguin
• Date d'édition: 1989
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0140191771
• ISBN 13: 9780140191776
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 208
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
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