The Homeric Gods
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The Homeric Gods
''The Homeric Gods: Spiritual Significance of Greek Religion'' (german: Die Götter Griechenlands. Das Bild des Göttlichen im Spiegel des griechischen Geistes, lit=The Gods of Greece: The Image of the Divine in the Mirror of the Greek Spirit) is a book about ancient Greek religion, published in 1929 and written by the philologist Walter F. Otto. Its main thesis is that the Greek religion was focused on the profundity of natural experiences, and therefore used less magical thinking than Asian religions, which tend to focus more on miracles. According to Otto, this reached its greatest expression in the works of Homer, where the Greek gods are portrayed as present in the natural world as particular forms of existence. The book has both been praised for its insights and larger arguments and criticized for its approach and errors. Otto's ontological approach to polytheism had an impact on a number of scholars and influenced the structuralist study of ancient religions. Background ...
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Moses Hadas
Moses Hadas (June 25, 1900, Atlanta, Georgia – August 17, 1966) was an American teacher, a classical scholar, and a translator of numerous works from Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and German. Life Raised in Atlanta in a Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish household, his early studies included rabbinical training. He graduated from Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1926) and took his doctorate in classics in 1930. He was fluent in Yiddish, German, ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, French, and Italian, and well-versed in other languages. His most productive years were spent at Columbia University, where he was a colleague of Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling. There he bucked the prevailing classical methods of the day—textual criticism and grammar—presenting classics, even in translation, as worthy of study as literary works in their own right. He embraced television as a tool for education, becoming a telelecturer and a pundit on broadcast television. He also ...
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Philhellenism
Philhellenism ("the love of Greek culture") was an intellectual movement prominent mostly at the turn of the 19th century. It contributed to the sentiments that led Europeans such as Lord Byron and Charles Nicolas Fabvier to advocate for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. The later 19th-century European philhellenism was largely to be found among the Classicists. Philhellenes in antiquity In antiquity, the term ''philhellene'' ("the admirer of Greeks and everything Greek"), from the ( el, φιλέλλην, from ''φίλος'' - ''philos'', "friend", "lover" + ''Ἕλλην'' - ''Hellen'', "Greek") was used to describe both non-Greeks who were fond of ancient Greek culture and Greeks who patriotically upheld their culture. The Liddell-Scott Greek-English Lexicon defines 'philhellene' as "fond of the Hellenes, mostly of foreign princes, as Amasis; of Parthian kings .. also of Hellenic tyrants, as Jason of Pherae and generally of Hellenic (Greek) patriots. According to ...
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Stefan George
Stefan Anton George (; 12 July 18684 December 1933) was a German symbolist poet and a translator of Dante Alighieri, William Shakespeare, Hesiod, and Charles Baudelaire. He is also known for his role as leader of the highly influential literary circle called the George-Kreis and for founding the literary magazine ' ("Journal for the Arts"). From the inception of his circle, George and his followers represented a literary and cultural revolt against the literary realism trend in German literature during the last decades of the German Empire. Biography Early life George was born in 1868 in Büdesheim (now part of Bingen on the river Rhine) in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. His father, also named Stefan George, was an inn keeper and wine merchant and his mother Eva (née Schmitt) was a homemaker. When Stefan was five years old, the family moved to Bingen am Rhein.Michael and Erika Metzger (1972), ''Stefan George'', Twayne's World Authors Series. Page 13. According to Michael and Eri ...
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Alfred Schuler
Alfred Schuler (22 November 1865 – 8 April 1923) was a German classicist, esotericist, ceremonial magician, mystagogue, writer, poet, and independent scholar. He was a co-founder and central esoteric figure of the Munich Cosmic Circle, a prominent group of Munich-based writers and intellectuals. Furthermore, he was a notable influence to poet Stefan George and philosopher Ludwig Klages, of whom he was a life-long friend, as well as other members of the Circle. The majority of his literary output was not published until after his death. Schuler studied law and archaeology at the University of Munich, and made his living as an independent scholar after his studies. Though devoid of political motives, Schuler's research into the historic significance of the swastika may have led to its appropriation by the Nazi movement. Schuler became highly critical of modern archaeology, seeing those in the discipline as "desecrators of graves ripping out of the earth what has been sanctifi ...
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Modern Paganism
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, is a term for a religion or family of religions influenced by the various historical pre-Christian beliefs of pre-modern peoples in Europe and adjacent areas of North Africa and the Near East. Although they share similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, and do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts. Scholars of religion may characterise these traditions as new religious movements. Some academics who study the phenomenon treat it as a movement that is divided into different religions while others characterize it as a single religion of which different pagan faiths are denominations. Because of these different approaches there is disagreement on when or if the term ''pagan'' should be capitalized, though specialists in the field of pagan studies tend towards capitalisation. Prominent modern pagan religions include Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, Rodnovery, and the Goddess movement ...
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Munich Cosmic Circle
The Munich Cosmic Circle was a group of writers and intellectuals in Munich, Germany at the turn of the 20th century, founded by esotericist Alfred Schuler (1865–1923), philosopher Ludwig Klages (1872–1956), and poet Karl Wolfskehl (1869–1948). Other members of the group included writer Ludwig Derleth (1870–1948) and the "Bohemian Countess" of Schwabing, Fanny zu Reventlow (1871–1918). She wrote about her experiences with the group in her roman à clef ''Herrn Dames Aufzeichnungen'' (1913). Alfred Schuler and Ludwig Klages came to know each other in 1893. With the others they based their early association upon an appreciation of Ibsen's dramas. Another interest was the work of Johann Jakob Bachofen (1815–1887), a Swiss anthropologist and sociologist, and his research into matriarchal clans. They developed a doctrine according to which the West was plagued by downfall and degeneration, caused by the rationalizing and demythologizing effects of Christianity. A way out ...
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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Johann Gottlieb Fichte, his mentor in his early years, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his one-time university roommate, early friend, and later rival. Interpreting Schelling's philosophy is regarded as difficult because of its evolving nature. Schelling's thought in the main has been neglected, especially in the English-speaking world. An important factor in this was the ascendancy of Hegel, whose mature works portray Schelling as a mere footnote in the development of idealism. Schelling's '' Naturphilosophie'' also has been attacked by scientists for its tendency to analogize and lack of empirical orientation. However, some later philosophers have shown interest in re-examining Schelling's body of work. Life Early life Schel ...
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George-Kreis
The George-Kreis (; George Circle) was an influential German literary group centred on the charismatic author Stefan George. Formed in the late 19th century, when George published a new literary magazine called ''Blätter für die Kunst'', the group featured many highly regarded writers and academics. In addition to sharing cultural interests, the circle reflected mystical and political themes within the sphere of the Conservative Revolutionary movement. The group disbanded when George died in December 1933. Formation George began publishing poems modelled on French Symbolism in the 1890s. In 1892, he created the ''Blätter für die Kunst'' magazine, mainly to publish own works and those by his admirers. Among his followers were Karl Wolfskehl and, a little later, Alfred Schuler and Ludwig Klages, both members of the Munich Cosmic Circle, as well as the Polish author Waclaw Rolicz-Lieder and the Dutch poet Albert Verwey. George assembled talented young men in an order-like confra ...
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Conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in which it appears. In Western culture, conservatives seek to preserve a range of institutions such as organized religion, parliamentary government, and property rights. Conservatives tend to favor institutions and practices that guarantee stability and evolved gradually. Adherents of conservatism often oppose modernism and seek a return to traditional values, though different groups of conservatives may choose different traditional values to preserve. The first established use of the term in a political context originated in 1818 with François-René de Chateaubriand during the period of Bourbon Restoration that sought to roll back the policies of the French Revolution. Historically associated with right-wing politics, the term ha ...
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Leo Frobenius
Leo Viktor Frobenius (29 June 1873 – 9 August 1938) was a German self-taught ethnologist and archaeologist and a major figure in German ethnography. Life He was born in Berlin as the son of a Prussian officer and died in Biganzolo, Lago Maggiore, Piedmont, Italy. He undertook his first expedition to Africa in 1904 to the Kasai district in Congo, formulating the African Atlantis theory during his travels. During World War I, between 1916 and 1917, Leo Frobenius spent almost an entire year in Romania, travelling with the German Army for scientific purposes. His team performed archaeological and ethnographic studies in the country, as well as documenting the day-to-day life of the ethnically diverse inmates of the Slobozia Slobozia () is the capital city of Ialomița County, Muntenia, Romania, with a population of 48,241 in 2011. Etymology Its name is from the Romanian "slobozie", which meant a recently colonized village which was free of taxation. The word its ... pr ...
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Ulrich Von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature. Life Youth Wilamowitz-Moellendorff was born in Markowitz (Markowice), a small village near Hohensalza (Inowrocław), in the then Province of Posen (now part of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship), to a Germanized family of distant Polish ancestry. His father, a Prussian Junker, was Arnold Wilamowitz, of Szlachta origin and using the Ogończyk coat of arms, while his mother was Ulrika, née Calbo. The couple settled in a small manor confiscated from a local noble in 1836. The Prussian part of their name, von Moellendorf, was acquired in 1813, when Prussian field marshal Wichard Joachim Heinrich von Möllendorf adopted Ulrich's ancestors. Wilamowitz, a third child, grew up in East Prussia. In 1867 Wilamowitz passed his ''Abitur'' ...
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Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 45, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes. Nietzsche's writing spans philosophical polemics ...
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