Charlene Spretnak
Autor/a de Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths
Sobre l'autor
Charlene Spretnak is Professor Emerita in the Philosophy and Religion Department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, USA. She is the author of several books on cultural history, religion and spirituality, and social criticism, including States of Grace, The Resurgence of the Real, mostra'n més Missing Mary, and Relational Reality. mostra'n menys
Crèdit de la imatge: Owen Barfield World Wide Website
Obres de Charlene Spretnak
The Politics of Women's Spirituality: Essays by Founding Mothers of the Movement (1982) 202 exemplars
The Spiritual Dynamic in Modern Art: Art History Reconsidered, 1800 to the Present (2014) 15 exemplars
Relational Reality: New Discoveries of Interrelatedness That Are Transforming the Modern World (2011) 10 exemplars
Spiritual Dimension of Green Politic 1 exemplars
States of Grace 1 exemplars
Obres associades
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Data de naixement
- 1946
- Gènere
- female
- Nacionalitat
- USA
- Lloc de naixement
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Membres
Ressenyes
Llistes
Potser també t'agrada
Autors associats
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 13
- També de
- 2
- Membres
- 850
- Popularitat
- #30,105
- Valoració
- 3.7
- Ressenyes
- 9
- ISBN
- 28
- Llengües
- 3
- Pedres de toc
- 5
Thesis: these peaceful, life-giving goddesses were worshipped in the murky (to us) time period between the pre-historical and post-historical world. That world is believed by scholars to have been matriarchal. The goddesses were, according to the author, intentionally disempowered and made irreverent by waves of patriarchal bands of violent and invading Greek-speaking nomads from the north. (This is before there was such a thing as “Greece”.)
My review: Spretnak’s thesis is not her own; she draws heavily from scholars who, in the early decades of the twentieth century, began synthesizing information from literary sources, archeological evidence, art, and linguistics to make sense of pre-historical religion and culture. In that scholarship, it is proposed that the Zeus-worshipping religion that later became the classical Greek pantheon was not indigenous to mainland Greece but instead was imported over millennia, starting about 3,500 years ago, by invading nomadic warriors who absorbed the indigenous religion into their own.
Spretnak devises an effective structure - she introduces each goddess with a thematic summary, pre- and post-Hellenic, followed by a synthesis of each goddess’s pre-Hellenic myth. The synthesis is Spretnak’s own interpretation of what their myth was prior to it being polluted by the invading Zeus-worshippers. I used the strident term “polluted” intentionally because Spretnak is strident in her assertions. She writes from a strongly feminist perspective and makes her distaste for patriarchal social structures clear.
If you’re looking for a purely objective summary of pre-Hellenic religious beliefs in the Aegean region, this is probably not the book for you. However, I believe Spretnak’s book is worth reading as a beginner’s guide to pre-Hellenic scholarship, whether you agree or not with her political opinions. Through her bibliography, she introduces us to major scholars, who since the 1920s, have synthesized information from multiple disciplines to paint a picture of what religious life was like in the days long before Homer.
Spretnak’s interpretations of the myths of Hera and Persephone are particularly moving. Hera’s myth, because rather than the tropic shrew of The Iliad, we meet a loving, powerful goddess who lifts women up rather than jealously tears them down. And Persephone’s, because rather than a tale in which a woman is a tropic victim of male violence, Persephone makes a choice to give comfort to both the living and the dead and therefore give humans the gloom of winter and the joyous rebirth of spring.… (més)