Introduction: the paradox of sacrifice and the politics of feasting -- Hesiod and the interpretation of Greek sacrifice -- Reevaluating the value of sacrifice: commensal politics -- The use of sacrifice: gendered politics -- Interpreting the politics of Greek sacrifice through poetics -- Anger and honorary shares: the Promethean division revisited -- The anger of Zeus in the Theogony -- Metaphors of anger and the mythic origin of sacrifice -- Why Zeus is angry: the socio-poetics of anger and distribution -- Conclusion: contested portions in poetry and practice -- Sacrifice, succession, and the politics of patriarchy -- Contest and deception, sacrifice and birth in Hesiod's Theogony -- Controlling consumption: sacrifice and Pandora -- Ending sacrifice, challenging patriarchy in the Homeric hymn to Demeter -- Conclusion: sacrifice and patriarchy in poetry and practice -- The desire of a god: semiotic sacrifice and patriarchal identity in the Homeric hymn to Hermes -- Desire, deception, and Hermes' conflicted genealogy -- Conspicuous consumption and sanctuary economics -- Hermes' semiotic sacrifice -- Sacrifice and song: the poetics of distribution -- Conclusion: Hermes' sacrificial self-fashioning -- Cities where men sacrifice: Odysseus returns to the fatherland -- Not misrecognizing Hermes -- Returning to the fatherland, returning to sacrifice -- Consumption without return: Odysseus' companions and the suitors -- Recognizing fathers and sons -- Conclusion: sacrifice, genealogy, and patriarchy in the Odyssey -- Conclusion: sacrificial narrative and the politics of the belly.
Summary:
This book offers a new interpretation of ancient Greek sacrifice from a cultural poetic perspective. Through close readings of the 'Theogony', the Homeric 'Hymn to Demeter', the Homeric 'Hymn to Hermes', and the 'Odyssey' in conjunction with evidence from material culture, it demonstrates how sacrifice narratives in early Greek hexameter poetry are intimately connected to a mythic-poetic discourse referred to as the "politics of the belly". This mythic-poetic discourse presents sacrifice as a site of symbolic conflict between the male stomach and female womb for both mortals and immortals. Ultimately, the book argues that the ritual of sacrifice operates as a cultural mechanism for the perpetuation of patriarchal ideology not just in early Greek hexameter, but throughout Greek cultural history.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.