Mythical Ancestry in World Cultures, 1400 – 1800
Edited by Sara Trevisan
From Europe to the Ottoman Empire, from Mesoamerica to the Mughal dynasty, rulers and peoples in the early modern period put deities and culture heroes in their family trees. The essays in this collection investigate the issues of ancestry, descent, kinship, and kingship that are revealed by this worldwide practice. The authors explore the meaning and role of ‘myth’ in different global cultures, and how the social role of myth defined identity through genealogical discourse. What did people understand by ‘mythical’ and how did they think of themselves as related to their mythical past? How seriously were these various claims of mythical descent taken? And how did claims function within the different power relations of societies around the globe? Up to now, the predominant Eurocentric perspective in early modern studies has encouraged a focus on Renaissance Greco-Roman mythology and its role in literature and art. This volume, however, breaks new ground through its unique exploration of the way in which the genealogical use of ‘myth’ was shared by world cultures.
From Europe to the Ottoman Empire, from Mesoamerica to the Mughal dynasty, rulers and peoples in the early modern period put deities and culture heroes in their family trees. The essays in this collection investigate the issues of ancestry, descent, kinship, and kingship that are revealed by this worldwide practice. The authors explore the meaning and role of ‘myth’ in different global cultures, and how the social role of myth defined identity through genealogical discourse. What did people understand by ‘mythical’ and how did they think of themselves as related to their mythical past? How seriously were these various claims of mythical descent taken? And how did claims function within the different power relations of societies around the globe? Up to now, the predominant Eurocentric perspective in early modern studies has encouraged a focus on Renaissance Greco-Roman mythology and its role in literature and art. This volume, however, breaks new ground through its unique exploration of the way in which the genealogical use of ‘myth’ was shared by world cultures.
- Edited by Sara Trevisan
Other Titles in this Series
Saints and their Lives on the Periphery
Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000-1200)
Volume 9
Material Restoration
A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex
Volume 7
Jerusalem in the Alps
The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy
Volume 37
Eclipse of Empire?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-Medieval France
Volume 1
Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World
European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Volume 36
Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies
Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, c. 1000-1350
Volume 45
Visions of Unity after the Visigoths
Early Iberian Latin Chronicles and the Mediterranean World
Volume 26
The Presence of Medieval English Literature
Studies at the Interface of History, Author, and Text in a Selection of Middle English Literary Landmarks
Volume 14
King John’s Delegation to the Almohad Court (1212)
Medieval Interreligious Interactions and Modern Historiography
Volume 23
Visions of Medieval History in North America and Europe
Studies on Cultural Identity and Power
Volume 41
A Renaissance Baron and his Possessions
Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1541-1585)
Volume 15
From Tyrant to Philosopher-King
A Literary History of Alexander the Great in Medieval and Early Modern England
Volume 19
Writing History in Medieval Poland
Bishop Vincentius of Cracow and the 'Chronica Polonorum'
Volume 28
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Legal Visuality
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Style Options, Artistic Rivalry and Self Fashioning in Neapolitan Baroque Painting / Plurale Stilbildung, Kunstlerkonkurrenz und Self Fashioning in der neapolitanischen Barockmalerei
Power and Women in Southeast and Central Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (1300-1600)
Volume 10
Staging the Spectacle of Majesty
Ceremonial, Courtly Space, and Collecting under the Spanish Habsburgs
Volume 9
