Chinese Mythology

Fülszöveg

Chinese Mythology
China's mythology dates from the remote past, over 3000 years ago, and reflects both the charm and violence of a society that endured little change until this century. Anthony Christie, who knows China and its people well, gives a fascinating account of its mythology as an expression of the attitudes underlying that civilisation.
The Chinese lived under arbitrary bureaucracies for centuries. Many legends portray the poor as hapless victims of injustice at the hands of gods and rulers. Others show them escaping into fantasy. In contrast many delightful myths concern animals with human personalities, like the dog who married a princess or the monkey who wanted to rule heaven.
Charming stories of country life contrast with horrific accounts of human sacrifice and the cruelties of gods and emperors to make a strange, exciting tapestry of the grotesque and the beautiful, the crude and the exquisite.
LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Myths and legends are... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Chinese Mythology
China's mythology dates from the remote past, over 3000 years ago, and reflects both the charm and violence of a society that endured little change until this century. Anthony Christie, who knows China and its people well, gives a fascinating account of its mythology as an expression of the attitudes underlying that civilisation.
The Chinese lived under arbitrary bureaucracies for centuries. Many legends portray the poor as hapless victims of injustice at the hands of gods and rulers. Others show them escaping into fantasy. In contrast many delightful myths concern animals with human personalities, like the dog who married a princess or the monkey who wanted to rule heaven.
Charming stories of country life contrast with horrific accounts of human sacrifice and the cruelties of gods and emperors to make a strange, exciting tapestry of the grotesque and the beautiful, the crude and the exquisite.
LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Myths and legends are found the world over, and their origin and purpose form a special part of the story of the development of man. Some of these myths embody man's early explanations of the world he lived in, the forces governing his life and the need to provide some account for the good and evil that befell him. Many of these forces were personified - given names and personalities - the first step to the formalisation of belief in ritual and in religion. A galaxy of gods, devils, heroes and monsters emerged, as varied as the societies from which they sprang and the appeal of their actions. Mythology has served as the foundation of man's loftiest and most abstract thought in art and religion - of Milton's Paradise Lost and the Hindu Bhagavad Gita-, equally the legends of the lesser spirits have been retained in folk tales familiar to us a 1 in fairy tales.
The Library of the World's Myths and Legends is an authoritative series on the major mythologies of the world's history. Written by a team of well-known scholars, including archaeologists, linguists and students of comparative religion, each book in the library combines an attractive recital of the myths of a culture with the world-picture that these stories reveal and the art-forms they have inspired. The text is fully illustrated with artefacts and paintings related to the myths, and, where appropriate, ethnological material showing the role of myth in everyday life. Vissza