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Prolegomena to the study of Greek religion (Meridian books)
by Jane Ellen Harrison
Product Group: Book
Publisher: World Pub. Co (1966)
ISBN: B0007FMBEQ
Unknown Binding: 682 pages
Edition: 3rd
SKU: P135724
Condition: Very Good
Comments: B0007FMBEQ This 1966 paperback evidences gentle use; it is clean and free of markings. Its cover shows only minor shelf wear; the spine is lightly creased but straight but sun-faded. Your book will be carefully protected for transit in sturdy, weather-resistant packaging. We are prompt, efficient, communicative.
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
Jane Harrison examines the festivals of ancient Greek religion to identify the primitive "substratum" of ritual and its persistence in the realm of classical religious observance and literature. In Harrison's preface to this remarkable book, she writes that J. G. Frazer's work had become part and parcel of her "mental furniture" and that of others studying primitive religion. Today, those who write on ancient myth or ritual are bound to say the same about Harrison. Her essential ideas, best developed and most clearly put in the Prolegomena, have never been eclipsed.
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Customer Reviews
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"Behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes."
Rating  (5)
Date: 2006-03-01
11 out of 11 customers found this reveiw helpful
Jane Ellen Harrison was a ground breaking scholar in the field of mythology--she was one of a group of what was called the "Cambridge Ritualists" who believed that contrary to prior belief that myths arose from rituals rather than rituals from myths.
Her primary thesis in Prolegomena is that the religion of the Greeks and Romans has been only selectively reported in order to support a vision of rational, highly civilized people as the progenitors of western thought. Scholarship of the 19th century was founded on the notion that "the integrity of Western Civilization depends upon the exceptionality of the Greeks" (p. xx). This vision was developed by the Romantic movement to support a superior intellectual foundation to western civilization that emerged from the Greek and Romans.
Harrison argues that in fulfilling this desire to have exalted ancestors, the true religion of the Greeks has been overlooked. Her scholarship is focused on what has not been noticed-her conclusion is that the Olympian gods of Homer are the final product of centuries of evolution from a more primitive collection of chthonic deities or forces.
Harrison is more interested in the earlier forms of religion--the underworld beings that were placated to prevent evil. She is a master at examining greek texts and art to delineate these ancient deities. As Harrison says: "Great things in literature, Greek plays for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes"
This book can be utilized as a reference to understand certain Greek myths more easily--or read it straight through to get a more thorough understanding of the world of Greek mysticism!!
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Man makes the gods in his own image
Rating (5)
Date: 2005-08-08
6 out of 6 customers found this reveiw helpful
Although partly out-of-date, Jane Harrison's analysis of 'neglected' aspects of Greek religion proves these aspects to be 'essential'. By dissecting rites, ceremonies, festivities and mysteries, she exposes the real obsessions of the Ancient Greek (Plato included). Instead of being 'possessed by a set of conceptions based on Periclean Athens', she shows astonishingly that Ancient Greece was still a totally irrational, savage and primitive society, dominated by ignorance and fear. Her picture is far more gloomy than the rosy one drawn by other scholars, who imposed their own language on ancient societies ('We should not monotheize').
In Ancient Greece, there was no 'civil' law. Law was essentially magic and in the first place a curse. People thought that they could injure their enemies by curse tablets, swathed figures ... In Plato's 'Laws', people who injured other citizens by magic had to die.
Ignorance and fear concerning the souls of the death, sprites, ghosts and demons were a fertile ground for theology (better: demonology). Evil spirits reflected the population's own savage, cruel and irrational passions and relations. (Porphyry: 'No Greek sacrifice of a camel or an elephant').
The Greek believed that evil was a physical infection that could be transferred on animals and human beings. The latter could be sacrificed in order to purify the rest of the population. One is astonished to learn that human sacrifices still took place in the 5th century BC. 'Pharmakoi' were kept and fed at the public expense in order to be slaughtered in rites of Aversion (riddance of evil spirits).
Winds were believed to be ghosts who had to be placated by sacrifices. The latter (humans were better than animals) took also place for mandic reasons.
In Greek theology, there were 'no gods at all', only conceptions of the human mind. Theology's formulary was 'panta rei'.
New gods developed out of heroes or crystallized out of a gentler form of ghost or were imported from other regions. One of the new gods was Dionysos coming from Thrace. He was the god of all growing things and of physical intoxication. His double was the god of spiritual intoxication: Orpheus (Orphism). The latter Mystery had a profound influence on Plato and his theory of the immortality of the soul (essentialism).
The author's analysis of the Eleusian Mysteries and Orphism are interesting but partly out-of-date, because new sources of information were discovered after the publication of her book.
For Eleusis I recommend G. Meautis's 'The Mysteries of Eleusis', and for Orphism, W. Guthrie's 'Orpheus and Greek Religion'.
This book contains excellent graphic material, which is magisterially analyzed by the author.
Harrison's book is still a must for all those interested in Ancient Greece. It is the work of a superb free mind.
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Excellent Detailed Information
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-09-16
9 out of 9 customers found this reveiw helpful
I was searching for an answer to the mystery that was in the Greek Mysteries. Harrison provides the answers. Prolegomena provides a very detailed account of the Mysteries that are rooted in worship of the the Chthonic (Earth) Gods that preceded the Olympian deities. The reading level of this book is probably the most difficult I have ever experienced in a book that I am reading purely for pleasure. You must have a burning interest in the field of ancient Greek religion to be able to appreciate this book for the great work it is. Jaime Gomez
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A Fascinating Classic
Rating (5)
Date: 2003-03-03
15 out of 15 customers found this reveiw helpful
Although published in the early 1900s and outdated in certain areas, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion is still an essential read for anyone interested in Greek Religion. Perhaps the best description of the book would be to call it the Greek Golden Bough. In this classic work, Harrison sought to uncover the primitive substratum of Greek religion, so rather than focusing on the
Olympian deities, she spends the better part of the book discussing ghosts, 'demons', and the chthonic deities. The religious landscape that she illuminates is therefore nothing like the cheery and rational world of the Olympians. The dark, the creepy and the uncanny tend to predominate. The book is very well-written, and the author's fascination with her material is infectious. I found it so powerful a reading experience that I can only describe Prolegomena in terms of a kind of anthropological prose poetry. Although its ostensible topic is a rather specialized and obscure field of enquiry, one comes away from the book with a feeling of having gained a deeper insight into that most general of topics, the human condition. I have to agree with the other reviewer who emphasizes that this is not a book for those completely unfamiliar with ancient Greek religion. Moreover, parts of it might be frustrating and tedious for readers without knowledge of the ancient Greek language, since Harrison is constantly engaged in the elucidiation and discussion of Greek religious terminology. All in all, an unforgettable book that, unlike most academic studies, is a piece of great literature.
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Indispensible classic
Rating (5)
Date: 2002-11-16
3 out of 12 customers found this reveiw helpful
This book is an indispensible classic for anybody interested in Greek religion. I was considering following up Prof. Harrison's weighty tome by writing the sequel: "Avgolemeno to the Study of Greek Soup Making," but I couldn't find an interested publisher, for some reason.*Note: "Avgolemeno" is a well-known Greek, lemon-flavored soup.
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