01:190:207 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: James George Frazer, Eleusinian Mysteries, Mary Renault
6 Nov 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Spin off from the magazine national lampoon founded by harvard graduate douglas kenny. Argued that myth is designed to explain ritual. A sequence of activities involving gestures, words, and objects, performed in sequestered place, and performed according to set sequence that is usually prescribed by a community or religion. A deme or village of athens that was formerly independent. Home of the eleusinian mysteries, an initiation ceremony of which the details were secret but had something to do with the eleusinian triad and an afterlife. When the eleusinian mysteries or the myths about demeter, came first, the version of the demeter story in the hymn is deeply engaged with the ritual. Plant fertility is a key theme of the ritual and the myth. Death and mourning are also key themes of the myth. Deneter nearly destroys all life because she is mourning the loss of persephone. Demeter tries to make demophoon immortal, but fails.
