To Fetch Some Golden Apples: Course Pack for Readings in Indo-European Myth, Religion, and Society

Author(s): Roger Woodard

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This course package includes:

Indo-European Myth and Religion:  A Manual, now in its fourth edition, is a unique scholarly and pedagogical resource designed for college-level students.  The work is formatted as a handbook of eleven chapters distilling fundamental ideas in outline form with essential bibliography. Two introductory chapters provide an overview of the Indo-European cultural and language family, reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, the methodology of historical-comparative reconstruction, and the developmental history of the discipline of comparative Indo-European mythic and religious studies.  The nine chapters that follow treat the attested Indo-European religious and mythic traditions of ancient and medieval Europe (Roman, Greek, Celtic, Germanic) and Asia (Indic, Iranian, and Hittite).  An appendix provides three sets of practice exams, with answers.

The manual is accompanied by a reader, To Fetch Some Golden Apples:  Readings in Indo-European Myth, Religion, and Society, containing selections that reinforce and augment ideas presented in Indo-European Myth and Religion.  These reading selections consist of secondary works by leading scholars in the discipline of comparative myth and religion, such as George Dumézil, Émile Benveniste, Calvert Watkins, and primary works drawn from Roman, Greek, Indic, Iranian, Irish, and Icelandic sources.

Indo-European Myth and Religion:  A Manual

Preface

1 The Indo-Europeans
2 Language, Myth, and Structuralism: The Evolution of a Discipline           
3 Roman Religion and Roman Mythic History      
4 The Greeks and Their Gods     
5 Hesiod’s Theogony
6 The Gods of Olympus and the Heroes of Ancient Greece
7 The Gods of Vedic India and Their Indo-European Heritage
8 The Mahabharata and Its Indo-European Heritage
9 The Gods of Ancient Persia and Their Indo-European Heritage
10 Celtic Society and Religion     
11 Scandinavian Myth and Its Indo-European Heritage

Practice Exams
Answers to Practice Exams
     
    

 

To Fetch Some Golden Apples:  Readings in Indo-European Myth, Religion, and Society

Preface
Select Bibliography and Abbreviations

PART 1: THE INDO-EUROPEANS
1.Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans
Calvert Watkins
2.Linguistic Reconstruction
Anthony Fox
3.Indo-European Homeland
J. P. Mallory
4. The Tripartition of Functions
Emile Benveniste

PART 2: ROME AND ITALY
5. Livy, History of Rome 1.9.1. – 1.13.8
B. O. Foster
6.From Mythology to History
Georges Dumezil
7. The Three Functions
Georges Dumezil
8. Iguvine Tablets VIa 1 – VIb 47
James W. Poultney
9. Social Symbolism in Greco-Italic Cults
Emile Benveniste
10. Some Indo-European Prayers: Cato’s Lustration of the Fields
Calvert Watkins

PART 3: GREECE
11. The “Kingship in Heaven” Theme
C. Scott Littleton
12. The Medical Tradition of the Indo-Europeans
Emile Benveniste
13. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.5.1 – 12
James Frazer
14. The Three Sins of Heracles
Georges Dumezil
15. Agamemnon and the Indo-European Threefold Death Pattern
David Evans

PART 4: INDIA
16. Cities and Communities
Emile Benveniste
17. Rig Veda 1.32
Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
18. Indra the Sinner and The Sins and Losses of Indra
Georges Dumezil
19. Sisupala
Georges Dumezil
20. Mater Matuta
Georges Dumezil

PART 5: IRAN
21. Mithra and Ahura-Mazdah, Mihrjan and Nauroz
Georges Dumezil
22. Mihr Yast (Yast 10)
William Malandra
23. The Root*guhen-: Avestan jan-
Calvert Watkins
24. Azi Dahaka, Visvarupa, and Geryon
Calvert Watkins

PART 6: IRELAND AND THE CELTS
25. The Indo-European Poet: His Social Function and His Art
Calvert Watkins
26. Eochaid Feidlech, His Daughters and His Sons
Georges Dumezil
27. The Tuatha De Danann
Marie Heaney
28. The First Battle of Moytura
M. J. Fraser

PART 7. SCANDINAVIA AND THE GERMANIC TRIBES
29. The One-Eyed God and the One-Handed God
Georges Dumezil
30. The Eddic Voluspa
Patricia Terry
31. The Gods: AEsir and Vanir
Georges Dumezil
32. The Rigspula and Indo-European Social Structure
Georges Dumezil
33. The Germanic World
Calvert Watkins

Roger Woodard

Roger D. Woodard is the Andrew van Vranken Raymond Professor of the Classics at the University of Buffalo (the State University of New York) and author of numerous articles and books, among which are Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Indo-European Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2006); Ovid:  Fasti (with A. J. Boyle, Revised edition, Penguin Books, 2004).

This course package includes:

Indo-European Myth and Religion:  A Manual, now in its fourth edition, is a unique scholarly and pedagogical resource designed for college-level students.  The work is formatted as a handbook of eleven chapters distilling fundamental ideas in outline form with essential bibliography. Two introductory chapters provide an overview of the Indo-European cultural and language family, reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language, the methodology of historical-comparative reconstruction, and the developmental history of the discipline of comparative Indo-European mythic and religious studies.  The nine chapters that follow treat the attested Indo-European religious and mythic traditions of ancient and medieval Europe (Roman, Greek, Celtic, Germanic) and Asia (Indic, Iranian, and Hittite).  An appendix provides three sets of practice exams, with answers.

The manual is accompanied by a reader, To Fetch Some Golden Apples:  Readings in Indo-European Myth, Religion, and Society, containing selections that reinforce and augment ideas presented in Indo-European Myth and Religion.  These reading selections consist of secondary works by leading scholars in the discipline of comparative myth and religion, such as George Dumézil, Émile Benveniste, Calvert Watkins, and primary works drawn from Roman, Greek, Indic, Iranian, Irish, and Icelandic sources.

Indo-European Myth and Religion:  A Manual

Preface

1 The Indo-Europeans
2 Language, Myth, and Structuralism: The Evolution of a Discipline           
3 Roman Religion and Roman Mythic History      
4 The Greeks and Their Gods     
5 Hesiod’s Theogony
6 The Gods of Olympus and the Heroes of Ancient Greece
7 The Gods of Vedic India and Their Indo-European Heritage
8 The Mahabharata and Its Indo-European Heritage
9 The Gods of Ancient Persia and Their Indo-European Heritage
10 Celtic Society and Religion     
11 Scandinavian Myth and Its Indo-European Heritage

Practice Exams
Answers to Practice Exams
     
    

 

To Fetch Some Golden Apples:  Readings in Indo-European Myth, Religion, and Society

Preface
Select Bibliography and Abbreviations

PART 1: THE INDO-EUROPEANS
1.Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans
Calvert Watkins
2.Linguistic Reconstruction
Anthony Fox
3.Indo-European Homeland
J. P. Mallory
4. The Tripartition of Functions
Emile Benveniste

PART 2: ROME AND ITALY
5. Livy, History of Rome 1.9.1. – 1.13.8
B. O. Foster
6.From Mythology to History
Georges Dumezil
7. The Three Functions
Georges Dumezil
8. Iguvine Tablets VIa 1 – VIb 47
James W. Poultney
9. Social Symbolism in Greco-Italic Cults
Emile Benveniste
10. Some Indo-European Prayers: Cato’s Lustration of the Fields
Calvert Watkins

PART 3: GREECE
11. The “Kingship in Heaven” Theme
C. Scott Littleton
12. The Medical Tradition of the Indo-Europeans
Emile Benveniste
13. Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.5.1 – 12
James Frazer
14. The Three Sins of Heracles
Georges Dumezil
15. Agamemnon and the Indo-European Threefold Death Pattern
David Evans

PART 4: INDIA
16. Cities and Communities
Emile Benveniste
17. Rig Veda 1.32
Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty
18. Indra the Sinner and The Sins and Losses of Indra
Georges Dumezil
19. Sisupala
Georges Dumezil
20. Mater Matuta
Georges Dumezil

PART 5: IRAN
21. Mithra and Ahura-Mazdah, Mihrjan and Nauroz
Georges Dumezil
22. Mihr Yast (Yast 10)
William Malandra
23. The Root*guhen-: Avestan jan-
Calvert Watkins
24. Azi Dahaka, Visvarupa, and Geryon
Calvert Watkins

PART 6: IRELAND AND THE CELTS
25. The Indo-European Poet: His Social Function and His Art
Calvert Watkins
26. Eochaid Feidlech, His Daughters and His Sons
Georges Dumezil
27. The Tuatha De Danann
Marie Heaney
28. The First Battle of Moytura
M. J. Fraser

PART 7. SCANDINAVIA AND THE GERMANIC TRIBES
29. The One-Eyed God and the One-Handed God
Georges Dumezil
30. The Eddic Voluspa
Patricia Terry
31. The Gods: AEsir and Vanir
Georges Dumezil
32. The Rigspula and Indo-European Social Structure
Georges Dumezil
33. The Germanic World
Calvert Watkins

Roger Woodard

Roger D. Woodard is the Andrew van Vranken Raymond Professor of the Classics at the University of Buffalo (the State University of New York) and author of numerous articles and books, among which are Myth, Ritual, and the Warrior in Roman and Indo-European Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2013); The Cambridge Companion to Greek Mythology (Cambridge University Press, 2007); Indo-European Sacred Space (University of Illinois Press, 2006); Ovid:  Fasti (with A. J. Boyle, Revised edition, Penguin Books, 2004).