The Construction of a Goddess: Isis in Apuleius's Metamorphoses
The Isis book (book 11) of the 21id century CE Latin novel, 11*tamo, phoses by Apuleius, is one of the ricliest sources for Isis and her cult from the Hellenistic-Roman period. As such, it is often used as evidence by feminist religious scholars who are trying to restore the divine feminine, a unive...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
University of Notre Dame
2021
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| In: |
Religion & literature
Year: 2020, Volume: 52/53, Issue: 3/1, Pages: 27-46 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Apuleius, Madaurensis 123-170, Metamorphoses 11
/ Isis worship
/ Divinity
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| RelBib Classification: | BE Greco-Roman religions FD Contextual theology TB Antiquity |
| Further subjects: | B
Isis (Egyptian deity)
B Textual Criticism B Golden Ass, The (Book : Apuleius) B Polytheism B Roman goddesses |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The Isis book (book 11) of the 21id century CE Latin novel, 11*tamo, phoses by Apuleius, is one of the ricliest sources for Isis and her cult from the Hellenistic-Roman period. As such, it is often used as evidence by feminist religious scholars who are trying to restore the divine feminine, a universal, all-porveri'ul Great Mother, who is caring and nurturing, to modern religious sensil, ilitics. However, in doing so, they have also often used this book without context or textual criticism, leading to a distorted picture of the divine feminine in modern scholarship. Such a project is not aided by the fact that there is no feminist reading of the Isis book in Apulcian scholarship. This study intends to fill the gap by making a gendered reading for Isis as a di~ine, but specifically as a literary construct. This is accomplished by examining the divine elements of Isis's construction, namely her powers and how her powers interact with others, ancl making a gendered interpretation of tile results of this examination. From this study, it can be seen that, although at first glance Al, zileius's Isis looks like a typical supreme but nurturing Great Mother, she is in ilict an incredibly demanding goddess, who is also carefully constrained by maleness. Her all-encompassing powers are only exercised under the puniew of a male god and arc only acceptable in the service of a male worshipper. Therefore, this reading must be taken into account wllenever the Aletamorphoses is used for studies of the divine leminine. |
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| Item Description: | Die Hefte mit der Zählung 52.2020,3 und 53.2021,1 sind als Doppelheft erschienen |
| ISSN: | 2328-6911 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion & literature
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1353/rel.2020.0036 |