Paganism Persisting
A History of European Paganisms since Antiquity
Seiten
2024
University of Exeter Press (Verlag)
978-1-80413-123-7 (ISBN)
University of Exeter Press (Verlag)
978-1-80413-123-7 (ISBN)
Paganism Persisting is a history of revivals of pagan religion in Europe from late antiquity to the 20th century. It explores the motives, beliefs and circumstances behind a series of attempted revivals in antiquity, the Byzantine empire, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Victorian era, and the twentieth century.
Paganism in Europe was not defeated by Christianity: it never went away. From the fourth century to the twentieth, against the background of a largely Christian culture, people repeatedly attempted to revive various kinds of pre-Christian religion – beliefs and practices that we have come to label as ‘paganism’.
Ancient paganism did not survive the Middle Ages in its original form; this book tells the story of the persistence of elements of paganism and the pagan idea through Europe’s pagan revivals, from Byzantine Greece to medieval Eastern Europe and Renaissance Florence, from eighteenth-century Norwich to revolutionary Paris and Edwardian England. While some of these revivals are well known and others are almost entirely forgotten, they reveal the rich diversity of interpretations of paganism – and how those interpretations have been conditioned by the surrounding culture.
Revived paganisms ranged from the austerely rational to the earnestly romantic, from the mystical and occult to the stridently nationalistic. Paganism Persisting reveals European paganism’s long afterlife, up to and including the emergence of modern paganism as a mass movement in the twentieth century. The authors are both historians of religion specializing, respectively, in the intellectual history of the idea of paganism and in the development of popular religion and folklore. This book has much to offer to anyone interested in European cultural history, the history of ideas and religious studies.
Paganism in Europe was not defeated by Christianity: it never went away. From the fourth century to the twentieth, against the background of a largely Christian culture, people repeatedly attempted to revive various kinds of pre-Christian religion – beliefs and practices that we have come to label as ‘paganism’.
Ancient paganism did not survive the Middle Ages in its original form; this book tells the story of the persistence of elements of paganism and the pagan idea through Europe’s pagan revivals, from Byzantine Greece to medieval Eastern Europe and Renaissance Florence, from eighteenth-century Norwich to revolutionary Paris and Edwardian England. While some of these revivals are well known and others are almost entirely forgotten, they reveal the rich diversity of interpretations of paganism – and how those interpretations have been conditioned by the surrounding culture.
Revived paganisms ranged from the austerely rational to the earnestly romantic, from the mystical and occult to the stridently nationalistic. Paganism Persisting reveals European paganism’s long afterlife, up to and including the emergence of modern paganism as a mass movement in the twentieth century. The authors are both historians of religion specializing, respectively, in the intellectual history of the idea of paganism and in the development of popular religion and folklore. This book has much to offer to anyone interested in European cultural history, the history of ideas and religious studies.
Robin Douglas is a writer and researcher based in London. His work is on the history of esoteric and pagan religious traditions from antiquity to the present day. Francis Young teaches for Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education and is the author or editor of over 20 books in the fields of the history of religion and folklore.
Acknowledgement
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. The First (and Last) Pagans: Ancient Greece and Rome
2. Dealing with Past and Present Paganism in Medieval Western Christendom
3. Pagan Renaissances
4. Paganism in the Enlightenment
5. Poets and Priests: The Victorian Era
6. The Emergence of Modern Paganism
Epilogue : Pagan Pasts, Pagan Futures?
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index
| Erscheinungsdatum | 08.10.2024 |
|---|---|
| Reihe/Serie | Exeter New Approaches to Legend, Folklore and Popular Belief |
| Verlagsort | Exeter |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 156 x 234 mm |
| Gewicht | 517 g |
| Themenwelt | Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Gesundheit / Leben / Psychologie ► Esoterik / Spiritualität |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte | |
| Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Weitere Religionen | |
| Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie | |
| ISBN-10 | 1-80413-123-7 / 1804131237 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-80413-123-7 / 9781804131237 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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