From Olympus to Camelot - The World of European Mythology

About the author

David Leeming is Emeritus Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. His books include The World of Myth, Dictionary of Asian Mythology, Myths, Legends, and Folktales, and Myth: A Biography of Belief. He lives in New York City.

Summary

From Iceland to India, from prehistoric cave paintings and fertility figurines to such modern-day 'myths' as the invisible hand, the Oedipal conflict and Schrodinger's cat, the author's treatise on comparative mythology covers a lot of ground.

Additional text

David Leeming's learning is vast, his ability to synthesize astonishing. Some scholars are 'conservative' in the best sense: they conserve human knowledge by analyzing it carefully before packaging it in useful compendia. Leeming has contributed yeoman service in a series of volumes that span huge areas of mythological and religious traditions. This volume will be especially helpful to readers who are interested in the broad range of European mythologies that stretch, thanks to Proto-Indo-European materials, into India and even northern Africa. The work adroitly summarizes what can be extremely complex and contradictory, namely the fragmentary archaeological hints of symbol, myth, and culture in Paleolithic and Neolithic periods.

Product details

• Authors: David Leeming, David Adams Leeming, Leeming David
• Publisher: Oxford Academic
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 08.05.2003
• EAN: 9780195143614
• ISBN: 978-0-19-514361-4
• Dimensions: 139 mm x 220 mm x 22 mm
• Weight: 413 g
• Illustrations: 21 line illus.
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Social sciences, law, business > Ethnology > Folklore; Europe, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Folklore & Mythology, LITERARY CRITICISM / Ancient & Classical, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / General, Folklore, myths & legends, Literary studies: classical, early & medieval, Literary studies: ancient, classical and medieval, Folklore studies / Study of myth (mythology)