{"product_id":"rationalizing-myth-in-antiquity-9780198831037","title":"Rationalizing Myth in Antiquity","description":"The Greek myths are characteristically fabulous; they are full of monsters, metamorphoses, and the supernatural. However, they could be told in other ways as well. This volume charts ancient dissatisfaction with the excesses of myth, and the various attempts to cut these stories down to size\u003cbr\u003eby explaining them as misunderstood accounts of actual events. In the hands of ancient rationalizers, the hybrid forms of the Centaurs become early horse-riders, seen from a distance; the Minotaur the result of an illicit liaison, not an inter-species love affair; and Cerberus, nothing more than a\u003cbr\u003enotorious snake with a lethal bite. Such approaches form an indigenous mode of ancient myth criticism, and show Greeks grappling with the value and utility of their own narrative traditions. Rationalizing interpretations offer an insight into the practical difficulties inherent in distinguishing\u003cbr\u003emyth from history in ancient Greece, and indeed the fragmented nature of myth itself as a conceptual entity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBy focusing on six Greek authors (Palaephatus, Heraclitus, Excerpta Vaticana, Conon, Plutarch, and Pausanias) and tracing the development of rationalistic interpretation from the fourth century BC to the Second Sophistic (first to second centuries AD) and beyond, \u003cem\u003eRationalizing Myth in Antiquity\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cbr\u003eshows that, far from being marginalized as it has been in the past, rationalization should be understood as a fundamental component of the pluralistic and shifting network of Greek myth as it was experienced in antiquity.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Greta Hawes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 12\/11\/2018\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 304\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.80lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.60d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780198831037\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eGreta Hawes\u003c\/strong\u003e received her Ph.D. in Classics from the University of Bristol in 2011, where she also held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is now a lecturer at the Australian National University. Her current research project looks at myth and storytelling in Pausanias's \u003cem\u003ePeriegesis\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press, USA","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":39932115878003,"sku":"9.78E+12","price":42.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_fca29f84-0dd6-4f41-adc6-818a32c116c2.jpg?v=1647790408","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/products\/rationalizing-myth-in-antiquity-9780198831037","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}