Book Series Cursor Mundi, vol. 35

Mythical Ancestry in World Cultures, 1400-1800

Sara Trevisan (ed)

  • Pages: ix + 196 p.
  • Size:156 x 234 mm
  • Illustrations:12 b/w
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:2018

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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58009-8
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  • ISBN: 978-2-503-58010-4
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A collection of essays exploring why and how world cultures and dynasties traced their own descent to the mists of mythical ancestry.

Summary

From Europe to the Ottoman Empire, from Mesoamerica to the Mughal dynasty, rulers and peoples in the early modern period put deities and culture heroes in their family trees. The essays in this collection investigate the issues of ancestry, descent, kinship, and kingship that are revealed by this worldwide practice. The authors explore the meaning and role of ‘myth’ in different global cultures, and how the social role of myth defined identity through genealogical discourse. What did people understand by ‘mythical’ and how did they think of themselves as related to their mythical past? How seriously were these various claims of mythical descent taken? And how did claims function within the different power relations of societies around the globe? Up to now, the predominant Eurocentric perspective in early modern studies has encouraged a focus on Renaissance Greco-Roman mythology and its role in literature and art. This volume, however, breaks new ground through its unique exploration of the way in which the genealogical use of ‘myth’ was shared by world cultures.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements.

Introduction — SARA TREVISAN

The Mythical Ancestry of the Mughal Dynasty — LISA BALABANLILAR

Origin Myths and Ethno-Regional Solidarity in Ottoman Egypt: An Unexpected Finding — JANE HATHAWAY

The Idol of Origins: Myth, Genealogical Memory, and Law in Hispanic America — JEAN-PAUL ZUNIGA

In Search of Ancestors: The Family Genealogists of Florence (XIV–XV century) — CHRISTIANE KLAPISCH-ZUBER

Francus, the Trojans, and the Kings of France: Visualizing Fabulous Genealogies in the Late Renaissance — EWA KOCISZEWSKA

Noah, Brutus of Troy, and King James VI and I: Biblical and Mythical Ancestry in an Anonymous Genealogical Roll — SARA TREVISAN

Mythical Ancestry, Genealogy, and Nationalism in Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Europe — ROBERTO BIZZOCCHI AND ERMINIA IRACE

Index