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• Pelops: The Emergence of a Mythical Personality From Folktale, Ritual and Geography

  5–18.

  András Patay-Horváth

  Views:

  294

  Heroes were generally imagined by the ancient Greeks as historical personalities from a distant past who were remembered even centuries later and whose deeds became legendary. Although this concept is occasionally found even today, it is much more probable and indeed it is generally agreed that mythical heroes were not created in this way, but myths somehow evolved from/in tandem with rituals and/or as aetiological tales. On the other hand, the close connections between folktales and myths were always acknowledged, even if the nature of their relationship remains controversial. In this paper, the mythical biography of Pelops is discussed because I think it offers an instructive case-study illustrating the complexities involved. All the episodes of Pelops’ myths follow distinct folktale patterns and each of them was most probably inspired by different factors such as geography (strange rock formations around Mount Sipylos), popular etymology (the name of the Peloponnese) and ritual (some special cult practices in early Iron Age Olympia). The episodes of the hero’s life (childhood, marriage, kingship) were only loosely connected to each other and they were not amalgamated into a coherent biography until the end of the 19th century.

• Lucius Brutus of Rome and Cypselus of Corinth

  27–44.

  Ádám Rung

  Views:

  276

  The story of Lucius Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic has often been analysed as a historical story, somewhat mythicised, and embellished by literary tropes; and some have also interpreted it as primarily a myth, historicised by a later Roman culture more interested in the exemplary than in the marvelous. Starting out in the latter tradition, this article explores a connection that has been hinted at from antiquity, and has been analysed from the historical and historiographic perspective to some extent, but has not been interpreted in detail as a connection between two myths: the numerous parallels that the story of Brutus and the Tarquins, as told by Virgil, Livy and Ovid, has to the saga of the aristocratic Bacchiad and the tyrannical Cypselid families of early Corinth, as told by Herodotus and Aristotle. The newly discovered parallels (and the re-examination of the known ones) between these stories also invite the reader to reflect on the ways they might have evolved, their political and cultural functionality and on the complex interplay between myth and history.

• From the Isles of the Blessed to Taprobane

  97–107.

  Melinda Székely

  Views:

  236

  By analysing Pliny's Naturalis Historia and placing it in the broader context of ancient knowledge, I describe the knowledge and myths about the islands of the western and eastern edges of the known world in antiquity, with particular reference to Pliny's subjective ideas.

• Der Mythos als Ursprache

  33–44

  Ibolya Tar

  Views:

  99

  After discussing some interpretations of myth (Burkert, Jensen, Jaspers, Eliade), the paper deals with the issue of myth’s appearance in literary works. The essential substance of a myth can appear in several treatments, according to the artist’s intention with regard to several interpretations. After a short survey of allegorical interpretations two myths (Orpheus and Eurydice, the golden age) are discussed in their several variations. In connection with the myth of the golden age Vergil’s works are examined to see whether in the Aeneid in particular he created a new myth or rather recreated the myth. In connection with this problem the distinction made between fable and sujet by the Russian formalists is discussed. In answer to the question whether a myth in its artistical appearance can be expressed verbally, Rilke and Hölderlin are cited.

• Die Grenzen der Bukolik

  179–191.

  József Krupp

  Views:

  221

  Szilárd Borbély (1963–2014) wrote long narrative poems in the last years of his life. The poems and the novel Nincstelenek (The Dispossessed, 2013) depict the life of a family in an East Hungarian village during the author's childhood years. In constructing the literary landscape, Borbély draws on ancient myths to paint a hierarchical picture of the village from a socio-economic perspective. Borbély planned to publish the poems under the title Bukolikatájban. Idÿllek (In a Bucolic Land. Idylls), although these are rather a palinody of a pastoral idyll. This essay examines how Borbély uses the word "gods" in the poems. Two poems (The Deucalion Collective Farm, Echo on the Veranda) serve as examples to show the role the reception of myth played in the construction of the "bucolic" world.