Introduction
Year: 2025
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: The Introduction offers an overview of the key arguments of this study: that metamorphosis offers an opportunity to glimpse how our historical subjects viewed the human body, as vulnerable to extreme emotions, and as intersecting with the surrounding landscape and its constituents. This is followed by more detailed theoretical explanations of the different aspects of my approach. First, ‘Myth and Metamorphosis’ explores how this type of myth developed—the essential narrative patterns formed before or during the Archaic and Classical periods of ancient Greek culture, as the myths were first written down—and the elements of these stories that still hold power today. Then, turning back to the period of their initial formation, ‘Embodied Elements’ examines the contemporary approach to the composition of the body and its interrelations with the elements of the cosmos that, I argue, underlies these stories. Finally, ‘Emotional Risks’ investigates how these stories present the body as a site of extreme emotions and concomitant dangers.
Author: Esther Eidinow
Institution: University of Bristol
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4413953719