In Search of the Lost Feminine : Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization.
Title:
In Search of the Lost Feminine : Decoding the Myths That Radically Reshaped Civilization.
Author:
Barnes, Craig S.
ISBN:
9781555918460
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (304 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Acknowledgments xiii -- Introduction: Rewriting the Story of Western Civilization 1 -- I. Minoan Artifacts Challenge the Inevitability of Patriarchy 9 -- The Mystery of Minoan Civilization 13 -- An Expectation of Rebirth or Immortality 23 -- Time as a Circle Rather Than a Line 33 -- The Troubling Question of War 44 -- Crete and the Issue of Female Sexuality 52 -- The Ecstatic and the Divine as Inseparable 60 -- Five Values Dramatically at Odds with Patriarchy 64 -- II. The Collapse of the Minoan World 67 -- The Invasions of 1600 BCE: A War Culture Emerges 68 -- The Theran Explosion: The Loss of Faith in Mother Earth 71 -- The Growth of Trade: The Diminishment of Daughters 79 -- The Great Civil War over Marriage: The End of Women-Centered Culture in the Eastern Mediterranean 82 -- III. A Warrior Civilization Emerges 91 -- Four Hundred Years of Chaos Sets the Stage 91 -- Values Shaped by Storytellers 96 -- An Exaggerated Feminine Is Made Monstrous 102 -- Mother Earth Is Overthrown 108 -- Jason Resists the Many Shapes of Seductive Women 113 -- Odysseus Rejects Calypso 124 -- Homer Poses the Choice between Love and Property 136 -- Clytemnestra Is Sacrificed on the Altar of Marriage 145 -- Marriage Destroys the Mother-Daughter Bond 151 -- Daughters Die for Civic Good 157 -- A Multitude of Myths to Tame, Punish, and Disparage Women 161 -- Oedipus, the Lost Son 169 -- A Glorious Monument Enshrining the Subordination of Women 175 -- Biblical Patriarchs Match the Greek Story 187 -- IV. Objections to the Warrior Civilization 195 -- Jesus Carries Forward the Eleusinian Symbolism of Grain and Wine 197 -- Jesus Takes On the Threat of Military Destruction 203 -- Ancient Beliefs Spring Up among the Celts 209 -- A Short-Lived Islamic Challenge 211 -- The Metaphor of the Holy Grail 214 -- Devil Talk and Witch Burnings 220.
Closing the Book on the Patriarchy 226 -- V. History as a Choice of Stories 231 -- Women Coming Home to Dignity 233 -- The Declining Utility of War 238 -- Another Story All Along 241 -- Appendix: Success and Failure in Women's Wagesand Employment in America 247 -- Endnotes 249 -- Bibliography 265 -- Index 271 -- About the Author 286.
Abstract:
Here, for the first time, an author weaves together threads that explain the mysterious disappearance of ancient cultures in which women and the environment were at the center, a loss that has dramatically influenced 3,500 years of Western history. The ancient world had not only treated women with respect but had been more resistant to war, more attentive to earth's cycles, more ecstatic overall. Then suddenly the whole culture vanished. The loss was ushered in by volcanoes and poets, gods of death and caricatures of maddening women, like Scylla, Charybdis, Medea, and Calypsoall of whom were intended to discredit an old civilization and install a new order. That new order secured patriarchal property, installed male gods, and established a requirement that respectable women be either virgin or married. In Search of the Lost Feminine is a fascinating study of Western history and the metaphor of the Holy Grail.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Genre:
Electronic Access:
Click to View