Incest in myth

In Interpreting Ancient Egyptian Narratives, Martin Pehal applies structural analysis to four New Kingdom narrative compositions. The study explains the strong configurational character of ancient Egyptian (mythological) thought which has the ability to connect various ontological levels of human experience with the surrounding world into complex synchronic structures. These symbolical systems are shown to be mediating between the various cultural paradoxes which were inherent to ancient Egyptian society. Axial role in this process is attributed to the institution of positional kingship represented by the Pharaoh. Its transformative function is also put into relation to the special status of female characters who are shown to play the part of the “powerful powerless ones” further personifying the aspects of the mediating function of myth. Gradually, the study outlines a genuinely Egyptian “structural net” of basic mythemes and explains in what way it was possible for such a system to change and incorporate foreign mythological motifs especially from the Near East.

What is the right thing to do? This subject of normative inquiry seems to have pervaded into all echelons of theoretical academic circles. While debating a life time about what moral stands we ought to pursue and what beliefs to proscribe, we seem to have forgotten to question the genesis of the concept of morality itself. What is "the good"? And, thus, subsequently, what is "the bad"? This paper attempts to understand the notion of morality by analysing incest, as a practice of master morality. By applying a Nietzschean lens, this paper seeks to understand how morality has changed in the course of time and what it has meant in different epochs that have passed by. More importantly, incest is simply an entry point here to a larger discussion on the meta-ethics of it all. While engaging in a genealogy of morality, we must stop and raise questions about how are we to govern ourselves: by standards of morality prescribed by the times or by a larger understanding of ...

House of Incest - A study of the meaning of "poetical illusion" in the work of Anaïs Nin in relation with the tragedy of incest and the crisis of the subject.

Au cœur de la problématique de l’identité féminine, le thème de la métamorphose d’une femme dans une autre, de la narratrice dans son personnage, inaugure le moment archétypal où la mimesis chute dans le monde.
L’érotisme pervers est un luxe menacé par la folie, où la névrose est magnifiée par l’entrechoc d’images, dont la sensualité et le rythme se fracassent devant l’obstacle démoniaque, « the curse of orgasm ». Et là, il n’est pas question de culpabilité morale, mais plus profondément la Maison de l’inceste est le lieu maléfique où la profanation charnelle coïncide avec une impureté esthétique rendant l’inspiration soupçonnable, mensongère, quand l’aimantation même de la sensibilité s’affole, comme un tournesol désorienté.

Ian McEwan-এর 'The Cement Garden' উপন্যাসটি নিয়ে ১৯৯৩ সালে
Andrew Birkin সেই নামেই এক সিনেমা বানান যা  'Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director' পায়। সেই সিনেমার কুড় ধরে Incest নিয়ে আলোচনা করাই এই লেখাটির agenda. Morality বা Legality কন্ডূয়ন না করে, আত্মীয়রতি যে আত্মরতির সাথে গভীর ভাবে যুক্ত সেই প্রতিপাদ্য তুলে আনে, বিভিন্ন গবেষণার ভিত্তিতে। সবশেষে Gay Pornography-র Twincest বা যমজরতি genre কে সামনে রেখে দেখতে চেষ্টা করে তার তুঙ্গ জনপ্রিয়তা আত্মীয়রতি, আত্মরতি আর সমরতির ত্রিবেণী সঙ্গমের ওপর নির্ভরশীল কিনা।

RESUMO

A partir da tragédia do grego Sófocles, “Oedipus Rex”, Freud construiu sua teoria do complexo de Édipo, considerado por ele como a pedra fundamental
do edifício da psicanálise e seus trabalhos acerca do inconsciente demonstram como a história individual de cada sujeito está, na dimensão simbólica, em
estreita ligação com ele, constituindo assim o núcleo das neuroses. O mito edípico, que na peça sofocliana se desenrola na cidade-estado grega de Tebas, é marcado pelos dois grandes crimes humanos condenados com rigor: o parricídio e o incesto com a mãe. Este trabalho propõe revisitar a tragédia grega e, à luz da psicanálise, guiar um olhar para Jocasta, mãe e mais tarde esposa de Édipo. Na trama, trata-se de uma personagem secundária, porém, deslocando Jocasta para o centro da tragédia, a rainha tebana revela seu desejo criminoso.

ABSTRACT

Starting from the Greek Sofocles’ tragedy, “Oedipus Rex”, Freud constructed the theory of Oedipus Complex, having considered as the foundational stone of the Psychoanalysis and his works about the unconscious showed as the individual history of each person is, in the symbolic dimension, directly linked to it, becoming this the neurotic nucleus. The Oedipian myth, that in sofoclian drama happen at Tebas, a Greece’s city, and is marked by the two strong human crimes extremely doomed: the father’s murder and the incest with the mother. This article suggest to visit again the Greek tragedy, and, under a luminosity of Psychoanalysis, to guide a look at Jocasta, Oedipus’ bearer and then wife, she’s considered a secondary character in the plot, but, lodging Jocasta at the center of the tragedy, the Teban queen reveals her murdering wish.

The focus of this paper is the analysis of Amélie Nothomb’s (born 1966) novella Tuer le père (‘Kill the Father’) (2011) regarding its classical influence. This work is a recre- ation of the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus. The author transfers the myth into a modern story. Therefore, the focus of this paper is comparison of Nothomb’s Tuer le père and the Sophocles’ ancient Greek tragedy, the most paradigmatic work concerning this myth in the Classical Era. Nothomb’s recreation of the myth undoubtedly takes influence from Freud’s remake of Oedipus myth, although it combines it with classical elements. Consequently, this paper shall elucidate how the parricide and incest taboos are performed in a contemporary work by Amélie Nothomb.

This article suggests that two major modern theories on incest and its prohibition, successively proposed by Freud and by Lévi-Strauss, are essentially transformations on a folklore leitmotiv tottering with age. The discussion examines Freud's weaving of traditional themes into psychoanalytic theory, and then addresses Lévi-Strauss' meta-Freud-ian elaboration. This inquiry leads to asking whether penetration into the products of the mind by the mind necessarily involves reenacting fundamental patterns of thought.

Family transgression is a wide spread motive of Old Icelandic literature and many sagas have their own occurrence of internal familial strifes, however this thematic is rarely so central as it is in Ynglinga saga. Its author gave extensive attention to the question of familial transgression and hence to the notion of kinship in a more general way. This thesis aims to study the occurrences of familial transgression in Ynglinga saga in order to bring understanding to the medieval notion of kinship. The essay mainly focuses on Ynglinga saga but intends to open the discussion to other texts, inside and outside the medieval Icelandic context. A particular attention is given to the field of structuralism which is used alongside comparative studies to analyze the patterns in the resolution of familial transgression between the different texts studied.

The present study offers a comparison between two myths concerning incest: Oedipus in Senecan tragedy on one side, Myrrha in Ovid Metamorphoses 10 on the other. The two narratives share many topics regarding structure, characters and motives: in particular, the fitting punishment for their sins, even if it is evidently different (selfblinding for Oedipus, metamorphosis for Myrrha), is defined in both cases as a halfway through life and death. This element is a key issue for any metamorphosis: but Ovid presents it this way only in the case of Myrrha. Oedipus, on his side, struggles desperately to obtain this result. This shows that incest is as relevant as parricide in Oedipus’ research for the fitting punishment. The similarity between metamorphosis and a punishment which implies a long death was already in Sophocles’ Antigone: so, there was a tragic antecedent for this analogy, which echoes in Ovid’s poem, and then reappears in another tragedy, Seneca’s Oedipus.

Folklorists have become renowned for concentrating on aspects of form and classification to the detriment of content and meaning. "Metamorphosis" seeks to reverse this tendency in showing, through an examination of the folkloric data, that European fairy tales involve complex symbolism. The book seeks to explain the puzzling contradictory attributes of fairy-tale figures that have discouraged the study of meanings in this field; and it proposes that the workings of metamorphosis in fairy tales reveal a pervasive cyclic ontology that underlies mythology and ritual generally. The issue of universal symbolism is again examined—divested from any "archetypal" generalizations—as a worthy subject of reflection.

http://lccn.loc.gov/2002003259"

What is the right thing to do? This subject of normative inquiry seems to have pervaded into all echelons of theoretical academic circles. While debating a life time about what moral stands we ought to pursue and what beliefs to proscribe, we seem to have forgotten to question the genesis of the concept of morality itself. What is "the good"? And, thus, subsequently, what is "the bad"? This paper attempts to understand the notion of morality by analysing incest, as a practice of master morality. By applying a Nietzschean lens, this paper seeks to understand how morality has changed in the course of time and what it has meant in different epochs that have passed by. More importantly, incest is simply an entry point here to a larger discussion on the meta-ethics of it all. While engaging in a genealogy of morality, we must stop and raise questions about how are we to govern ourselves: by standards of morality prescribed by the times or by a larger understanding of morality as a concept. In the last analysis, through the subject of incest, the paper seeks to bring out the dilemma involved in the politics of choice that reigns this world supreme. We must decide what encompasses taboo and what does not.

Scopo della presente ricerca è dimostrare in che modo il mito greco di Edipo sia suscettibile di essere studiato alla luce del folklore, ovvero in base a quali elementi si possa parlare di un "folk-tale" di Edipo e come uno studio comparato dell'antica leggenda tebana e delle sue supposte varianti folkloriche medievali e moderne, possa fornire chiavi di lettura utili alla comprensione dello stesso mito antico.
In un primo momento si è studiata l'evoluzione del mito di Edipo dalla tradizione letteraria pre-tragica (cap. I) alla tragedia ateniese del V sec. a.C., in special modo sofoclea (cap. II), per poi andare ad analizzare i possibili rapporti tra Edipo e il folklore, proponendosi di dimostrare se sia possibile individuare un "folk-tale" di Edipo da accostare e comparare a un ingente corpus di materiale folklorico medievale e moderno, comprendente fiabe e leggende d'area cristiana, che pare replicare struttura e temi del mito antico preso in esame (cap. III).

A recent genetic study has revealed that the adult male buried in the most elaborate recess of the Neolithic passage-tomb at Newgrange was the child of a first-degree incestuous union, suggesting that the complex was built as a burial monument for an endogamous family elite who may have been regarded as “god-kings.” The present paper shows how closely the bioarchaeological reality is paralled by the mythology of the site. Mythological narratives reveal the acceptance, prevalence and prestige of close consanguineous unions among the divine royalty of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the mythologically-nominated builders and users of Newgrange.

Tolerance of same-sex relations in the earlier Platonic dialogues is called into question in Plato's *Laws.* Jennings offers insightful historical and political motivations as to why this Platonic anomaly may have come about. The colloquial image of the gay-friendly Plato is all the more dangerous because it is so tacitly presupposed ~ so uncritically accepted ~ that it seems almost genetically to pass down through the educated classes. To out Plato ~ he who very well may have invented the closet ~ as, himself, a closeted proto-homophobe is utterly scandalous and utterly necessary and...deserves our attention and applause.

‘A new tree was not worth so much’

These words, spoken by Orpheus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, concern one of the best known sources of incense in Roman religion - Myrrh. Myrrh was a highly prized spice used in many religious practices, including funerary contexts, both as incense and in other forms. It might therefore be surprising to hear the Thracian Bard speak so disparagingly of such a vital part of religious rites. However, when examined in detail, myrrh has rather a chequered reputation. In addition to incense, myrrh was also commonly used in perfumes, a form of adornment which at once permeated elite Roman life and invited copious criticism from those who considered such luxuries to be degenerate, effeminate, and ‘un-Roman’. Furthermore, behind the product itself lay a myth surrounded by themes of ‘perverted pietas’ (Betty Rose Nagle, 1983), deception, and uncontrolled female desire.

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This paper aims to address the uneasy coexistence of myrrh as a worthy offering for the gods, myrrh, the height of effeminate, effeminising luxuria, and myrrh, the product of an incestuous passion. How does the myth of Myrrha, with its themes of excess and immorality, relate to the accusations of perfume as the most lavish kind of luxuria by Pliny the Elder, and as evidence of female seductive and deceptive intent by poets such as Martial and Ovid? To what degree is myrrh’s role in religious ritual in the form of incense, or rather its depiction in these contexts by Roman writers, shaped by these less favourable sides to its nature? By examining the various roles of myrrh as an incense, a perfume, and a subject of myth, it is possible not only to reassess our understanding of the substance itself, but also of the ways in which fragrant substances in the Roman world were defined and redefined by their context - sacred or profane, as state-sanctioned expressions of pietas, or as dangerously feminine symptoms of luxuria.

Paper presented at the conference 'Sensing Divinity/Les sens du rite', 23-24th June 2017, British School at Rome and the École française de Rome.

Durante el siglo XX, las obras de teatro en las que aparecen los Labdácidas, en América latina como en España, profanan la imagen de este linaje mítico. Edipo y Yocasta representan la mayor transgresión, y su hija Antígona encarna una paradoja en cuanto a la familia : ella es el emblema de la fraternidad sagrada, pero el desorden que caracteriza su filiación la destruye y la conduce a la muerte. A la vez vitales y mortíferas, sus relaciones familiares guían a la heroína por un camino de auto-definición que supone encontrar su sitio en un linaje trastornado por el incesto. Hasta su propio nombre la pre-destina, al significar “contra la generación”. No es casualidad si la figura ha inspirado a los psicoanalistas, y es interesante observar cómo se plasman las interpretaciones de Freud y Lacan acerca de los esquemas familiares en la escena teatral española de las últimas décadas. El rechazo del matrimonio con Hemón y de la maternidad ya no se explica tanto por su relación con Edipo o con Polinices sino que interroga el modelo social y surge la cuestión de la transmisión de la memoria, de una historia silenciada.
A partir de los múltiples avatares contemporáneos de Antígona, se pueden observar las descomposiciones y recomposiciones de una representación emblemática del contra-modelo de familia que es la de los Labdácidas. En efecto, las obras de María Xosé Queizán, de Ambrosi Carrión, de Luis Riaza, de Agustín García Calvo y de José Bergamín revelan que en vez de ser un nido protector, la familia es fuente de sufrimiento heredado que Antígona consigue superar y trascender. Ella se construye como la redentora de los pecados de sus padres como de sus hermanos. Sus parientes son su “sangre”, una casta profana que ella pretende purificar con su sacrificio. Su relación con su hermana, Ismena, es particularmente compleja, pues ambas se definen en oposición en cuanto a su manera de reaccionar ante la disgregación familiar y social. Cuando se separan sus caminos, cada una reivindica su elección como forma de sobrevivir o morir por y para su familia. Ismena pretende transmitir, prolongar la filiación, superar la maldición familiar, cuando Antígona espera purgar -sacrificándose- un modelo familiar en ruinas, mortífero, que sólo acarrea sufrimiento.
Parece pertinente, en particular, aplicar las reflexiones de Judith Butler sobre el carácter ambivalente de la postura de Antígona en cuanto a las normas del parentesco (Butler, 2001) a las representaciones y actualizaciones españolas de la tragedia griega.
Ésas desplazan el conflicto trágico hacia las relaciones fraternales y filiales como síntoma de una problemática transmisión de la memoria, pues el núcleo familiar constituye el espacio privilegiado de la herencia. Si Antígona es garante de la memoria (personal y nacional), Ismena también puede imponerse, según las reinterpretaciones, como la figura de transmisión. En efecto, ella es la que decide tener hijos para que perdure el linaje: sin ella entonces, tampoco podría transmitirse el recuerdo, aunque la extinción de la sangre puede constituir un sacrificio necesario… Cuando se pone en escena el fracaso de la memoria y la incomunicabilidad paradójica (pues la familia sería, en teoría, el crisol de la transmisión), semejante dilema desemboca en la transmisión de la “misión memorial” al propio público. Es el caso en la versión de Manuel Bayo, por ejemplo.
La reescritura de esta tragedia permite alterar el mito para representar la crisis que agita la sociedad a raíz de la dictadura. Así pues, la familia funciona como metáfora de la nación: los conflictos oponen las generaciones, los bandos, hasta que se desplomen las configuraciones tradicionales y emerjan nuevos modelos. Por ejemplo, algunas obras manifiestan cierta confianza –propia de su época– en otras estructuras, otros lazos humanos (más ideológicos) para transmitir y proteger, a diferencia de la tendencia actual. También constituyen el síntoma del progresivo reconocimiento de los lazos parentescos más allá de la sangre, lo que desemboca en una redefinición de lo que es una familia. Vertebrado por el concepto de lealtad, el ideal de familia que defiende la heroína griega confluye con los debates actuales en los escenarios hispánicos.
Como hija y como hermana, Antígona hereda también de un papel perturbador que molesta su familia y a través de ella, la sociedad (y sus estándares arcaicos). Por ejemplo, se enfrenta con su tío Creón, representante del poder político y del patriarcado, el cual intenta reducirlo todo a una “croniqueja de familia” (L. Riaza). Pero el conflicto excede los limites de la familia y desafía las autoridades políticas. Lo cual permite, en muchos casos, incluir un discurso ideológico que trastorna la jerarquía de los modelos, invirtiendo norma y margen. En efecto, “descendiente del desorden de la filiación, Antígona llega a ser una figura monstruosa, la amenaza de ‘lo fuera de la norma’.”  Es muy interesante observar que en las reescrituras, a pesar de ser transgresora y marginada, la familia mitológica, bajo la pluma de unos dramaturgos contemporáneos, pasa a ser un ejemplo de dignidad y probidad.

In the controversial final scene of Women of Trachis, before he dies, Herakles asks for Hyllus, the eldest son by Deianira, to marry his concubine, Iole. Is this a (semi)incestuous marriage? And is it possible to find any other trace of a similar practice in ancient Greece? In this article, I try to answer these questions, in the light of the notion of incest “of the second type”, and by considering, in particular, the episode of Telegony where Telegonus marries Penelope and Telemachus marries Circe (compared with the wedding of Iolaus, the nephew of Heracles, and Megara).

Aujourd'hui, je vais répondre à une interrogation que l'on me pose souvent : est-ce que c'est vrai que les pharaons se mariaient entre frère et soeur ? Oui, ils pouvaient, même si ce n'était pas systématique, et nous allons voir pourquoi ils pratiquaient l'inceste et pourquoi cela n'avait rien de choquant en Egypte ancienne.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERRmWZKxlrk

English subtitles available

#Egypte #Egyptologie #Antiquité #Histoire #Pharaon #roi #reine #inceste #relationincestueuse #pratiqueincestueuse #Hatchepsout #Toutânkhamon #RamsesII #AmenhotepII #Thoutmosis II #Cléopâtre #Ptolémée #Osiris #Isis #sexe #sexualité #pouvoir #amour #frère #soeur #civilisationégyptienne #tabou #anecdote #AmandineMarshall #ToutankaTube #Education #Educationnationale #documentaire #chaîneYT #chaîneYouTube #chaînedegyptologie #sitestoquedantiquitetasqualikertoutankatube

This article addresses the discrepancies within Biblical sources concerning the parentage of Queen Athaliah of Judah whether she is a daughter of Omri, king of Israel or Ahab, king of Israel. The article also discusses the three marriages recorded in Biblical and rabbinic texts between the royalty of the Kingdom of Judah and the Kingdom of Israel as well as answers questions regarding the apparent incestual nature of one of those marriages.

The God father of my class in high school
Le parrain de ma promotion d’École Normale

JAMAIS TROP TARD POUR BIEN FAIRE
NEVER TOO LATE TO DO GOOD


SOMMAIRE

1. JEAN COCTEAU – LE SANG D’UN POÈTE – 1933 – (non disponible sauf sur l’Internet) – SCÉNARIO – EDITIONS DU ROCHER - 1999

2. JEAN COCTEAU – JEAN DELANNOY – JEAN MARAIS – L’ÉTERNEL RETOUR – 1943

3. JEAN COCTEAU – LES PARENTS TERRIBLES – 1948

4. JEAN COCTEAU – JEAN-PIERRE MELVILLE – LES ENFANTS TERRIBLES - 1950

5. JEAN COCTEAU – JEAN MARAIS – ORPHÉE – 1950

6. JEAN COCTEAU – JEAN MARAIS – LE TESTAMENT D’ORPHÉE - 1959

7. JEAN COCTEAU – JOSÉE DAYAN – LES PARENTS TERRIBLES – 2003

This chapter presents a study of Metastasio’s drama Demofoonte
from the perspectives of Descartes’ theory of passions and Aristotle’s ideas of tragedy, taking into account how these were reflected or challenged in Metastasio’s own writings and with a special emphasis on the characters’ circumstances, relationships and social status, as well as on the contrast between their passions and actions. It aims to demonstrate that this drama was designed to create circumstances allowing the expression of the extreme passions of pity and aversion when, in the third act, the principal character, Timante, suddenly realises that he has committed the most terrible of crimes, i.e. incest, having unknowingly married his own sister and having bear Olinto, a true ‘misero pargoletto’, an unhappy little boy born out of sin. As the drama was naturally conceived to be set into music, this study concludes by analysing and comparing manifold musical settings of Metastasio’s original arias for the drama, in order to explore the compositional association between key musical features and specific passions as materialised in some forty settings of Timante’s aria.

The article critically analyzes two tales collected between 1976 and 1980 in northern Niger, in the course of anthropological fieldwork on Tuareg social relations. Tales highlight the importance of the brother-sister relationship in Tuareg oral literature, an importance reflecting the privileged position the relationship occupies in the social network. This article essentially focus on “Teshewa”, collected in February 1980 from Ghaïsha Ult Khamed, of the Iberdyanan tribe, the imghad (commoners) of the Kel Ferwan Tuareg who are nomads west of Agadez, Niger. Then it examines a second, “Young Girl Kidnapped by a Djinn”, collected from numerous individuals in the same region, only in terms of the questions raised by the first.
See her a brief oral presentation: http://www.hometold.com/video/detail/un-conte-touareg

It is remarkable how often we consider certain constructs in other peoples’ worldview to be "myths," while in our own case we regard equally arbitrary assumptions as inherent to the nature of things. As every anthropologist knows, one’s most cherished cultural assumptions tend to remain implicit; in other words, worldview is largely unconscious. This book explores the possibility of plumbing obscure aspects of one’s own culture in order to assess what some might call (regarding other cultures) the mythic underpinnings of worldview. Seven explorations in folklore and ethnography exhume a conceptual heritage that still influences perception, albeit in unconscious ways. This archeology of intangible heritage provides the sort of break in intellectual routine that allows us to look anew at familiar things.

http://www.amazon.com/Archeology-Intangible-Heritage-International-Folkloristics/dp/1433102188/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270281566&sr=1-1

http://lccn.loc.gov/2007051531

Nondum matrimonia contrahunt; non incestus uitant; non ecclesiam Dei cum debita reuerentia frequentant: con queste parole Giraldo di Cambria, confermando l’opinione di Strabone, Gaio Giulio Solino e altri, accusa gli Irlandesi di essere un popolo barbaro, pagano e dedito all’incesto. Sorvolando sulle parole degli autori classici, che si limitano a riproporre un tema antico, nella Topographia Hiberniae l’autore cambro-normanno sembra invece scrivere con cognizione di causa. In primo luogo, infatti, Giraldo visitò effettivamente l’isola tra il 1183 e il 1186, al contrario dei geografi-compilatori del mondo antico. In secondo luogo, il problema era già stato sollevato secoli prima, quando in Irlanda stava rapidamente crescendo una Chiesa sulle orme di Patrizio, Columba e Brigida: il cristianesimo rifiutava gli aspetti endogamici di quella che è stata definita una società a conical clans, perciò l’agiografia, la vera mitologia del sincretismo celto-cristiano, riporta diversi esempi, palesi o meno, di tale condanna.
Ad ogni modo, le accuse degli autori cristiani sollevano diversi dubbi: i miti irlandesi, come nell’altra grande mitologia celtica – quella gallese-arturiana – presentano vari casi di eroi e guerrieri nati da incesto, e anche alcuni santi, tra cui Cumméne Fota, hanno una tale origine. È poi senz’altro innegabile che nell’élite celtica era frequente il matrimonio all’interno del proprio gruppo sociale. D’altro canto, l’incesto primario viene generalmente aborrito nei testi legali: il frutto di una relazione incestuosa, detto macc scríne, “figlio di uno scrigno”, veniva abbandonato alle correnti dell’Oceano e, se tornava alla spiaggia sano e salvo, veniva allevato come un servo. Molti casi di incesto mitologico, probabilmente perché filtrati da copisti cristiani, vengono inoltre generalmente epurati in altre varianti dei miti.
Basandosi principalmente sulle fonti cristiane e giuridiche a partire dal VII secolo, l’intervento mira a fornire una panoramica su una questione spinosa, che nei testi viene generalmente aggirata con eufemismi o edulcorazioni, cercando di determinare se e quanto la cristianità abbia influito ad arginare un fenomeno diffuso o se le accuse degli ecclesiastici e degli stranieri siano un tentativo di bollare gli Irlandesi come un popolo barbaro per ragioni politiche ed ideologiche.

" Those machines whose output was so great that all men might be clothed; those new methods of agriculture and new agricultural implements, which promised crops so big that all men might be fed—the very instruments that were to give the whole community the physical basis of a good life turned out, for the vast majority of people who possessed neither capital nor land, to be nothing short of instruments of torture. " (Mumford 1922, pp. 115-116, emphasis added) We grew corn at the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm gardens this year, and while the corn stalks grew to be over eight feet high they were barren. The corn grew tall, but it was unable to bear fruit because of the northerly environment it grew in. Similarly, we grew a strain of tobacco that was gifted to the gardens by a company from the US, and while the tobacco grew tall, had big, beautiful leaves, and even began to flower, it did not mature to the point of bearing its seed pods. The tobacco grew tall, but it was unable to bear fruit because of the northerly environment it grew in. Post-Industrial society can be likened to such a plant, which grew tall from the seed—from the utopian myth—of industrial society but failed to bear the fruits portended by these myths because of the environment (the Paternalist Worldview [Barnesmoore 2017a; Barnesmoore 2017b; Barnesmoore 2017c]) it grew in.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses has sparked debate for centuries, but one plotline of the collection has been relatively unstudied: incest. Written after years of social and political turmoil, the Metamorphoses has yet to be analyzed for its potential historiography, using it as a primary source to interpret the recent events and current sentiments, such as the implementation of Augustus’ marital laws, the Lex Iulia. The particular myth that will be analyzed for its historical influence is the tale of Myrrha, a young woman who has romantic feelings for her father. In this research project, the student will investigate the story of Myrrha and how it reflected contemporary opinions and legislation.

Comment faut-il comprendre Lévi-Strauss lorsqu’il décrit son travail dans les Mythologiques comme un processus doublement réflexif de deux pensées agissant l’une sur l’autre en vue de leur commune illumination; ou quand il écrit qu’une pensée anonyme prenait conscience à travers la sienne à mesure que son ouvrage devenait l’auteur d’un exécutant qui ne vivait plus que par lui? La recherche de moyens de réponse à cette question mène à cerner, dans le présent essai, une dimension apparemment déroutante de la pensée du grand ethnologue, ainsi qu’à esquisser des implications épistémologiques du phénomène relevé.

Gower’s treatment of the incest motif in the “Tale of Apollonius” in Book VIII of the Confessio Amantis is embedded into the poet’s discussion of king- ship, which, like incest, emerges as being subject to legal discourses. Read political- ly, the portrayal of Apollonius would appear to sustain a host of often discordant voices, many of which articulate the text’s desire to represent Richard II: there is the ideal monarch, the flawed ruler, and the maturing hero. A balanced reading favours Apollonius as a narrative device oscillating between the functions of giving advice to a prince and issuing “constructive criticism” to a tyrant. The antidote to bad king- ship and incest is administered in the form of good governance and marriage, two concepts that were undergoing radical reform at the time, namely the introduction of consent as their foundation. I will argue, therefore, that the successful integration of political and marital consent as a condition for good rule lies at the heart of Gow- er’s advice to the inexperienced monarch.1

La lettura dei contributi qui raccolti pone immediatamente agli occhi del lettore come il tema oggetto di indagine si riveli inaspettatamente di problematica definizione. L’incesto, infatti, nel nostro pensiero comune appare come un concetto chiaro, evidente, quasi spontaneo e naturale. Molti lo ritengono uno dei pochi, veri, «universali», condivisi e presenti in ognuna delle culture che l’uomo ha costruito nell’arco della sua storia. Eppure non è così. Lo abbiamo visto fin dagli articoli di apertura di questo volume, dalla loro continua necessità di contestualizzare e distinguere, di analizzare emicamente all’interno della cultura e della fase storica considerata un concetto che si pensava scontato nel suo significato e nelle sue possibili articolazioni, inevitabilmente presente e stigmatizzato, e invece non solo si è rivelato problematico definirlo, ma addirittura si è scoperto assente in uno dei quadri storico-culturali qui trattati, quello della Persia pre-islamica, dove peraltro all’interno della religione zoroastriana si nota una tale considerazione positiva dell’unione tra padri e figlie, tra fratelli e sorelle, per noi sconcertante.
Come orientarsi quindi in questo caos inaspettato? Gli stessi contributi che ci hanno posto il problema, ci offrono allo stesso tempo una valida guida per costruire con gli spunti tratti da ognuno di loro una valida bussola per non perdersi nel labirinto in cui rischiavamo di smarrirci.

This article explores the paradoxical nature of the Ovidian story of Pasiphae and the bull, the progenitors of the monstrous Minotaur. Building on arguments from chapter 3 of my 1997 book Reading Myth: Classical Mythology and its Interpretations in Medieval French Literature (Stanford UP), I posit that the 14th-century Ovide moralisé, a vast French translation and allegorization of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, treats this story differently from other tales of sexual transgression by refusing to establish explicit links between the literal level of the fiction (fable or fabula) and that of the spiritual or allegorical interpretation, the usual practice of the Ovide moralisé. I also analyze other interpretations of the story – claiming that the bull was actually king Minos’s secretary -- from Servius, Bernardus Silvestris and others to Christine de Pizan, and examine the sin of bestiality in medieval canon law, penitentials, and law codes.  I argue that for this 14th-century writer the abhorrent nature of this sin – more extreme than same-sex love or incest also treated in the text -- mixing human and animal nature, the rational with the irrational, accounts for the unusual treatment accorded to this story and its interpretation in the Ovide moralisé.

This forthcoming paper draws attention to some possible unconscious processes that might occur in the transference /counter-transference work with a severely depressed patient - especially when things seem stuck at an impasse, and the patient seems to have withdrawn into painful silences.
Some  material from psychotherapy  with a young women who had been abused intrusively by her father when she was a young child is discussed, with a view to highlighting some hitherto obscure aspects of an infant's psychological use of the Father - particularly in relation to the capacity for experimentation and exploration in imaginative thinking and the enjoyment of a fantasy life, as a prelude to adult sexuality.
Some common counter-transference traps and technical difficulties receive some speculative comments - as do some ideas about the formation of creative, experimental states of mind in adult intimate relationships.
Melanie Klein thought that projective identification could have its positive aspects, when used as a basis for empathy - the (Shakespearean) capacity to imagine oneself into the psyche of an Other.
But, this is only possible for the child in a spirit of play and adventure and safety - beyond the sometimes intrusive thoughts or actions of a disturbed parent, or parent figure.