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Bonhoeffer’s Creation and Fall guides readers through a “theological” exegesis of Genesis chapters 1–3 and was an early manifestation of the “German Church Struggle” (Kirchenkampf) against National...

The article is devoted to the study of the historical poetics of the Olonkho Vilyui Yakuts. The relevance of the study is due to the need for an in-depth study of the archaic and late layers of the Yakut heroic epic based on the materials of the Vilyui expedition of 1938, with the help of which it is possible to reveal the specifics of the olonkho of the Vilyui region. The author of the article concludes that the materials of this expedition accurately reflect the peculiarities of the local tradition under consideration. The archaic stratum of olonkho is revealed, which is characterized by a ritual parenthetic song before or after the performance of the epic, the preservation of the mythologeme of the creation of the world, the image of the sacred birch Aar Kuduk Khatyng, a less developed description in the epic beginning. It has been established that the formation of the late layer of olonkho poetics is associated with a number of reasons, including the following: the cumulative nature of the characters’ actions under the influence of a fairy tale; demythologization; replacement of the heroic with everyday life; reflection of the negative consequences of the development of society; the appearance of borrowed words, the names of Russian cities, Christian concepts, images of Russian girls, the fire-breathing Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga as a result of close ties with Russians, their culture and worldview; the emergence of a war motive between the aiyy and abaasy tribes as a reflection of the Great Patriotic War; the image of the achievements of technical progress (in particular, the steamer); displacement of images; using the image of a shaman; the introduction of an intermediate layer of images of semi-ayy and semi-baasy.

In this essay, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. addresses the historical and contemporary failures of American democracy. Using the metaphor of “the magician’s serpent,” Glaude brings Walt Whitman’s views on democracy into the full light of America’s failure to resolve the problem of race. Glaude places Whitman’s Democratic Vistas (1871) in conversation with James Baldwin’s No Name in the Street (1972) in order to construct a different sort of reading practice that can both engage with Whitman’s views on democracy and reckon with what George Hutchinson calls Whitman’s “white imperialist self and ideology” as an indication of the limits of a certain radical democratic imagining.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, from the perspective of biographical criticism, the relationship between T. S. Eliot, the greatest English modernist poet, and Paul Valery, the greatest French Symbolist poet during the years 1920-1925. This paper is to thoroughly trace the mutual relationship or the influential interaction between Eliot and Valery mainly through correspondence in The Letters of T. S. Eliot 1: 1898-1922 (2009) and The Letters of T. S. Eliot 2: 1923-1925 (2009). Eliot, the editor of The Criterion, mediates perfunctorily in publishing first Captain Mark Wardle’s translation of Valery’s “Le Serpent” (1922) in the literary magazine in 1923 with the help of Richard Cobden-Sanderson the publisher and Lady Rothermere the patron, and second Le Serpent par Paul Valery (1924) with Wardle’s translation and his “A Brief Introduction to the Method of Paul Valery.” Valery’s high praise for Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) is sharply contrasted with the latter’s severe critique on the former’s “L’Âme et la danse: Dialogue socratique” (1921). Charles Whibley and John Hayward, as intimate mutual friends of Eliot and Valery, play important roles in consolidating their respectful friendship. In short, numerous English and/or French letters of Eliot and Valery over a period of six years intensively reveal their influential interplay ranging from editor-contributor relationship to laudable masterly international friendship. This study will further elucidate the relationship between Eliot and Valery during the years 1926-1929.

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793), William Blake offers a trail to fly through the Universe. His muse, the “sneaking serpent”, elucidates the concept that diabolic does not contain in itself the idea of evil – nevertheless it is an active springing from Energy, for every existence is holy. This study understands the prophetic trip narration to mystery as a way that the poetic voice erects against Reason (Good), to empower himself in the Energy of Devil (or of Hell). Hereby, it was adopted the idea of devilish as a vital force, avoiding dogmatic and religious definitions of the term, a thematic often struggled by the author, mainly concerning his rupture with the thoughts of Emanuel Swedenborg. Another point that was researched was in relation to distinct visual representations of the serpent myth in Blake’s illustrations, as in “The Serpent Attacking Buoso Donatin” (1826–7, reprinted in 1892), and in “The spiritual of Nelson guiding Leviathan” (1805-1809). Both in written and pictorial artworks, the author asserts that the serpent symbolizes the sacred that lives in all profane things. Em O Casamento do Céu e do Inferno (1790-1793), William Blake oferece uma trilha para voar pelo Universo. A sua musa, a “serpente sorrateira”, elucida o conceito de que o diabólico não contém em si a ideia do mal - no entanto, é uma nascente ativa da Energia, pois toda existência é sagrada. Este estudo entende a viagem profética da narração em direção ao mistério como uma forma que a voz poética ergue contra a Razão (Bem), para se empoderar na Energia do Diabo (ou do Inferno). Adotou-se, assim, a ideia do diabólico como força vital, evitando-se definições dogmáticas e religiosas do termo, temática com a qual o autor muitas vezes se debatiava , principalmente no que diz respeito a sua ruptura com o pensamento de Emanuel Swedenborg. Outro ponto pesquisado foi em relação às distintas representações visuais do mito da serpente nas ilustrações de Blake, como em "A Serpente Atacando Buoso Donatin" (1826-7, reimpresso em 1892) e em "O espiritual de Nelson guiando o Leviatã" ( 1805-1809). Tanto em obras escritas quanto pictóricas, o autor afirma que a serpente simboliza o sagrado que vive em todas as coisas profanas.

Understanding the theme of atonement as articulated in The Apocalypse (Revelation) requires cognizance of time and space, particularly when John describes the battle between Michael and the Great Dragon (alias Devil, Satan, Deceiver, and Accuser). After providing a summary investigation of these related biblical characters, this article emphasizes how the simultaneity of the events described in the heavenly and earthly visions of Rev 12:5–10 expresses the means of victory won by Jesus on the cross. The way in which the male Child wins the ultimate victory over evil is the same as the means of the Child’s ascendency to the throne—His death. The Dragon’s defeat by Michael in heavenly combat is one-and-the-same as the Satan’s defeat by the earthly self-sacrifice of the Child.

The chapter makes a case that any history of social movements in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries cannot ignore visual materials as prime medium for education, information dissemination and propaganda. Temperance visuals, with their propensity for drama, are particularly crucial in this regard. The chapter traces the international career of one particular visual trope—the alcohol monster. Having its iconographic roots in the biblical story of Adam and Eve’s fall from grace, temperance campaigners often depicted alcohol as a serpent. It was both treacherous and poisonous. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extensive visual literacy achieved by the temperance movement in Bulgaria in the 1920s and 1930s.

Snake or serpent is one the most widespread and oldest symbols which is known among different cultures folklore and mythology. As the role of symbolic notions is at the center of understanding any mythology, we would like to determine imagery meanings of the snake which could help researchers for knowing the myths more accurate and descriptive. Sometimes this motif represents the cycle of time and sometimes it does refer to Evil and even could be the symbol of divinity and eternity. So this should be noted that how we can grasp any meaning from the narrations in which applied snake notion. These properties had roots in what they could be aware of snake nature and its biological attributes. As the same time, these properties are meaningful under the conditions that culture and, in some cases, religious thought prepared. The mixture of these end to some image that could be found in the mythology of their region.The very article discusses mythological aspects of snake notion in Indian and Wikings folklore, similarly to those which research on the Indo-Europian and Vikings cultural relationship and connections; except that our research is not focused on ontological and historical debates but only on the descriptive analyzing of mythological semantics. Meanwhile, it can be counted as some base which useful for whom like to dig up relations between two far distance cultures of Indians and Wikings., Yılan imgesi birçok dünya mitolojisinde kendisine yer edinmiştir. Kimi zaman bir figür kimi zaman ise başat bir karakter olarak mitoslarda yer edinen Yılanların doğadaki kimi özellikleri edebi betimlemeler ve sembolik ifadeler ile kadim metinlerde kaydedilmiştir. Tasvirlerde kullanılan özellikleri Yılanın biyolojik niteliklerini yansıtmaktadır. Yılanın bir sembol, motif ya da karakter olarak mitolojideki anlamı, ya da karşılaştırılabilirliği burada örnek olarak ele aldığımız Hint ve Viking mitolojilerine temel yaklaşımımızı ortaya koymaktadır.Viking mitolojisinin içinde yer aldığı Germen kolu üzerinde Hint-Avrupa’ya bağlanması öteden beri araştırılmaktadır. Öte yandan, aralarında kurulmaya çalışılan tarihsel ya da ontolojik bağı şimdilik göz ardı edilerek sadece Yılan figürü üzerinde söz konusu tartışmaya küçük bir katkı yapılmaya çalışılmıştır.

The paper considers national and cultural specifics of a biblical idiom змий-искуситель (Old Serpent, lit. tempting serpent) that reflects the concept of snake characteristic of the Russian people in the context of Chinese linguistic culture. After analyzing the symbolic meanings of the zoonym snake in Chinese context, the authors revealed that this idiom is absent in Chinese, as the concept of tempter that the snake has in the Russian linguistic culture is absent in Chinese linguistic and cultural tradition. Meanwhile, temptation is one of the dominating anti-values of the Russian linguistic culture. The obtained results showed difference in semantics of the snake zoonym and idioms including this component between the representatives of Russian and Chinese culture due to an active influence that the culture exerts onto the national language. In Chinese tradition, the image of the snake has both positive and negative connotations. It is defined by symbolism of the totem animal that is genetically related to a dragon, which is reflected in many Chinese chengyu. Often, the attributes of insidious, cruel, evil and greedy animal are highlighted in the image of a snake. However, connotations of a tempter are absent in the Chinese phraseology. The materials of the paper may find practical application in teaching the Russian phraseology to foreign audiences, including the Chinese one.

Este artigo propõe a leitura de representações da cultura visual religiosa com fins devocionais a partir dos conceitos do Nachleben e dos Pathosformeln de Aby Warburg. O objeto de pesquisa é um desenho suíço com os motivos dos três caminhos e com o título “Estreita é a porta, e apertado, o caminho que leva à vida, e poucos há que a encontrem”. Depois de uma reflexão sobre a tradução e compreensão subjacente de Nachleben, aplica-se o conceito tanto às narrativas visuais (Crucifixo, Levante de Serpente, Nova Jerusalém, cidade da Vaidade, Paraíso, Boca do Inferno, dois (três) caminhos) como textuais e metafóricas (citações de textos bíblicos e hinos). Conclui-se que se pode falar de um Nachleben no sentido duplo – tanto de metáforas bíblicas (ou da Antiguidade) transformadas em imagens como de ênfases luteranas a partir da contribuição de Lucas Cranach, o Velho – e que o conceito de Pathosformeln articula bem o aspecto performativo e, ao mesmo tempo, educativo e apelativo do gênero da arte sagra devocional. Palavras-chave: Linguagens religiosas; cultura visual religiosa; Aby Warburg; Nachleben; Pathosformeln.

We present a preview of our work for a critical anthology of medieval and pre-medieval fantastic folklore narratives about animals in the human body. These are generally referred to among English-speaking scholars as ‘bosom serpent’ legends. In particular, we provide here two of the most ancient texts from the section of the anthology on medieval Scandinavia. We also offer two little-known narratives, a medieval Latin saint’s life and one from the Byzantine Greek world.

From serpent similes and Jacob’s sheep to the wild dogs that devour Jezebel, the Bible abounds with animal life. Indeed, the ubiquity of animals in biblical texts bespeaks a society in which animals were a critical and omnipresent feature of everyday life. Early scholarship on the Bible’s animals focused primarily on classifying species, but attention soon shifted to the literary and rhetorical use of animal imagery. More recently, there has been a good deal of discussion inspired by interests in contemporary animal rights concerning attitudes towards non-human animals in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

In this chapter, ‘Liber Novus in Nietzsche. Jung’s Seminar on Zarathustra’, I will investigate the impact of Liber Novus in Jungʼs understanding of Zarathustra, as emerging from his Zurich seminar (1934–1939). In the first half of the chapter, I will analyse three themes referring to Jung’s understanding of Zarathustra as Nietzsche’s failed individuation: the Old Wise Man—Zarathustra and Philemon; intoxication, inflation, the Ubermensch and the Ubersinn; isolated suns, the island of the dead, and the ‘wheel of creation’. In the second half of the chapter, I will dwell upon symbols of animals that do not always play major roles in Zarathustra but to which, nonetheless, Jung dedicates long and detailed psychological interpretations. Such animals, in fact, are relevant in Liber Novus: serpent, bird, and black scarab; frogs and swamp; doves, the feminine, and the ‘soul’.

The language used by the Satanic serpent in his encounter with Eve in Book 9 of Paradise Lost is key to Eve's subsequent temptation and eventual Fall. The first danger of the temptation scene, as John Leonard has argued, lies in her being drawn into a debate about the nature of the serpent's speech: “[T]he serpent speaks specifically about his speaking and attributes this supposedly new power to some as yet unspecified fruit” (141). He not only provides Eve with an account of how he came to possess the human gift of language, but also outlines how he came to possess the cognitive faculties that underlie it (PL 9.598–601). In what follows, I argue that the scene functions as a counter‐didactic experience for Eve, specifically in its allusive reworking of a passage on the origins of language in the Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius's didactic poem On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura, henceforth DRN). The key to the success of Eve's temptation in Book 9 is the way the exchange employs and subverts elements of this Lucretian account of language in DRN 5, announcing the confusion of Eve's cognitive faculties, and building the language of misplaced wonder that subverts the didactic message of Lucretius's poem.

In 1776 the Japanese writer Akinari Ueda published “Jasei no in”, one of nine stories in the genre of the kaidan, or narration of the “strange or anomalous”, that were compiled under the title Ugetsu monogatari. In “Jasei no in”, Akinari reinterprets the East Asian serpent woman myth as the spirit world repressed from cultural consciousness and stages Toyoo’s confrontation with the serpent woman, the unintegrated anima, as a psychologically enriching encounter with the world of the spirits. This chapter argues that Akinari’s text treats an early modern individual suffering from a separation from the world of the spirits and needing to regain a balance between the external world and the spirit world. In the Western tradition, the lamia is the closest figure to Akinari’s serpent, and Keats’ 1819 poem Lamia constructs the snake woman as an anima figure to the young hero, Lycius.

The study simply pointed out that what Balaam did in Numbers 22:41, Numbers 23:1-16, was consultation of gods at prophetic (Sophian) ancient mountain cults. They were called Philasaphim or occultic (i.e. secret) consultations of extraordinary wonder working powers, Hebrew “Niphilaosophiru”, Judges 6:13, Job 5:9, Psalm 75:1, i.e. the inexplicable or numbers uncountable. The study employed classist textual geographical maps illustrations methodology in presenting the occultic secrets Assemblies, Hebrew Pilosopaot in Orphic-Sopherim (Teachers of mysteries; Woodrow, 1969) as seen in Ecclesiastes 12:11 called Masters of Assemblies, however what this study found out were the Casdimah, magi or Ashaphs called the “Baalisophot” Hebrew “Phylasophu” leaders of mountain (Baal or Phaal) Ezekiel 13:18 i.e. secret cults of the sophis (serpent, Mathew 10:16 wisdom of the Kedemar and the Chaldean-Casaphis; Isaiah 2:6).

El título y parte del contenido de este intercambio entre dos universitarios se inspiran en la novela epistolar Les liaisons dangereuses de Pierre Choderlos de Lachlos, que puede considerarse una exploración de las ironías de la condición humana. El intercambio de epístolas es entre el Dr. Alberto Golding y la Dra. Manman Touchstone, nombres inspirados en la alquimia. Golding es bueno como el oro pero potencialmente maleable; Touchstone, se utilizaba para probar la pureza del oro o la plata, y, en forma figurativa, para comprobar si algo o alguien es genuino. Aparte de alguna crítica al sistema académico, el tema fundamental de estas epístolas es el antifeminismo de la Edad Media haciendo referencia a algunas situaciones de la época contemporánea. Además de los escritos que revelan misoginia se hace referencia y analizan los poemas del siglo XIV sobre Melusina, una bella mujer que se metamorfoseaba en una serpiente

This paper argues that Augustine makes use of two principal images in his four extant sermons on Perpetua and Felicity: the masculine image of the combatant, who engages in spiritual warfare with the devil, and the feminine image of the mother, who tramples the diabolical serpent through childbirth. This paper makes the case that in styling the martyrs as combatants and mothers Augustine develops images that first appear in their third-century Passio. This thesis challenges the scholarly consensus which claims that Augustine departs from the content of their Passio in order to present these women behaving in conformity with the “patriarchal” norms of the late antique Church.

The episode of the bronze serpent in Num 21:4-9, because of its exegetical difficulties, is mainly considered as an etiological and/or symbolic narrative. In this article, topographical and archaeological considerations broaden the interpretational framework, providing a new exegetical line for the reading of the episode. The analysis of the complex interaction between Elohim, Yahweh, Moses and the people unfolds in four inconsistences played out with the terms 'seraph serpents', 'seraph', 'serpent of bronze', and 'serpent', and is followed by the inter-textual study of these words and of the symbolism of the serpent in the Old Testament. The episode is then considered in the framework of the literary and theological contexts of Numbers, focusing on the location marks mentioned in the narrative of the journey between Kadesh and the Stay in Moab. As the geographical indications point to the Arabah region as the background of the episode, the results of the archaeological and geological investigations carri...

This article examines the interrelation of animality and gender in Chrysostom’s Homilies on Genesis via the elusive figure of the serpent. I argue that in seeking to shore up the serpent’s status as an irrational animal, Chrysostom renders it alternately masculinized and feminized. This ambiguous gendering of the (already ambiguously bestial) creature plays a central role as Chrysostom recasts post-lapsarian femininity in terms of slave-like subjugation. The serpent serves as the narrative device that allows him to align radical subjection, animality, and femininity—and thus as the transfer point for refiguring Eve’s own position after the fall in these terms.

Early twentieth century weird tales occupy an important place in the development of genre fictions. Among the innovations they contribute are new forms of monsters, diverging from earlier Gothic or mythological traditions, which spring, in part, from a strand of post-Darwinian thought that understood any bodily shape to be possible in adaptation to environmental conditions. This paper explores three stories which, by staging human encounters with animal monsters of radical unknown shapes, suggest new ways in which humans and animals might relate to each other: William Hope Hodgson’s The Boats of the ‘Glen Carrig’ (1908), Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘The Horror of the Heights’ (1913) and Will A. Page’ ‘The Air Serpent’ (1911).The encounter between characters and monsters is at root a colonial encounter between humans and the natural world, and often a violent one. By presenting weird animals as monstrous, the stories engage a number of anxieties associated with human-animal kinship and evolutionary superiority. By presenting monsters as strange Others but also as fellow creatures fit for their environments, however, these tales reach towards understanding animals as subjects in their own right with a claim to existing in their own spaces, destabilising the anthropocentric assumptions with which the human characters approach their adventures.

After reviewing current suggestions for improving the text of Lucr. 3.658, this article argues for accepting Marullus’ serpentem and emending line-final utrumque to et atro. These proposals, the author contends, significantly improve the syntax of a corrupt line that nevertheless has been retained unaltered in several recent texts of the Epicurean poet. As various parallels show, the newly suggested ater is a particularly appropriate term for characterizing the menacing serpent of Lucretius’ poem.

Cecil B. DeMille was an unsung auteur and master of the American biblical epic whose feature films were eagerly awaited by the paying public and filled Paramount’s purse. And yet, he was routinely ignored, dismissed or devalued by critics unappreciative of the enormous artistry deliberately engineered therein, especially his penchant for serpent symbolism. This particular omission is in need of belated attention. Consequently, using humanist film criticism as the guiding analytical lens, this essay selectively reviews the critical DeMille, film and religion literature, locates DeMille’s place and reputation in Hollywood history, explores The Ten Commandments (1956), and explicates numerous exemplars of his trademark serpent signature under five heuristic headings. The essay concludes that DeMille was a far more insightful and accomplished biblical filmmaker than has been previously appreciated.

In Greek mythology, Hydra is a dreadful multiheaded serpent with unusually lethal power. According to Jorge Luis Borges (2005), “the creature’s breath poisoned the waters and brought drought to the...

Against the reference in Q to “crowds” generally, John the Baptist’s response in Matt 3:7 to “Pharisees and Sadducees” who arrive for baptism is, “Offspring of vipers [γeννήματα ἐχιδνῶν], who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?” In Matt 12:34, Jesus himself denounces the Pharisees as “offspring of vipers [γeννή­ματα ἐχιδνῶν].” Similarly in Matt 23:33, he demands of “scribes and Pharisees” alike, “Snakes, offspring of vipers [ὄϕeις, γeννήματα ἐχιδνῶν], how will you escape the judgment of Gehenna?” The fundamentally ambiguous and frequently negative overtones of serpent imagery elsewhere in Second Temple Judaism and the wider Mediterranean world, the prevalence of wordplay and its application to intercommunal Jewish polemic, and the broader function of texts as instruments of community definition together provide an appropriate series of contexts for understanding this invective. Notwithstanding the plausibility of such language on the lips of John and Jesus alike, these terms are singularly appropriate to Matthew’s own task of situating his community in relation to that of Pharisaic Judaism in the immediate aftermath of the first Jewish war. This study explores, first, analogous language from Hellenistic and Jewish (especially Dead Sea and Mishnaic) literature and, second, the possibility that behind the references to serpents lies an invidious wordplay on one or both of ספר, “scribe,” and פרושים, “Pharisees.”

Serpent lore, dragon lore, and related ritual have long been of interest in religious studies, anthropology, and folklore. While works that provide rich ethnographic descriptions of particular cultural contexts are not to be neglected, broader comparative studies are also of value. Here a comparative approach is taken to the investigation of two themes widespread in African cosmic serpent lore: a shape-shifting Serpent Being with dragon-like features who is master controller of the waters and a related myth of a superboy who saves the world by slaying a dragon monster. Comparative analysis of tales from Lesotho indicates that Sotho-Tswana people retained ancient ideas common to other peoples in south and central Africa, and beyond. These two story lines are interpreted in terms of debates about diffusion, common origins, and independent invention. Both cognitive naturalism and inter-societal contact, in different ways, offer explanation of these shared themes.

Saint Ambrose (died 397) employs two zoological symbols of Christ to introduce his audience deeper into the mystery of Christ. Firstly, the paper analyses the symbol of the good serpent used by the Bishop of Milan to describe all of the history of salvation from the original purity of the first man, through his fall, the coming and victory of Christ the Saviour to the calling of the Christian faithful to become good serpents who will enter into the glory of Christ, the Good Serpent. Secondly, it studies the image of a deer surrounded by enemies and winning over the serpent, which primarily represents the divine attributes of Christ. Simultaneously, this symbol represents an invitation addressed to the Church of Milan at the end of the 4th century to listen to the voice of Christ when persecuted by those who denied Christ's divinity. We come to the conclusion that both symbols allowed his audience to understand God's activity as a present-day reality which the faithful can enter into. At the same time, they embody a means to clarify one of the essential truths of the Christian faith, i.e. that Christ heals humanity poisoned by sin directly in the misery of sin and death which was part of the Milanese Christians' lives on the level of both social and economic crisis, and in the conflict with other religious groups. Both images exemplify an exhortation as to how to behave in the present-day situation: the faithful, similar to the serpent, are supposed to bring testimony-martyrdom and contemplate the coming of Christ the Word with the acute eyes of a deer.

The medieval French Melusine romances, which recounted the legend of the fairy serpent's foundation of the illustrious Lusignan dynasty, enjoyed wide popularity across western Europe from the late fourteenth century onwards. This essay examines a collection of manuscript fragments of the prose Roman de Melusine located in the Upton House Bearsted (UHB) Collection in Warwickshire. It argues that the UHB fragments, and implicitly the original manuscript from which they derived, occupy a unique position among the surviving corpus of over thirty prose and poetic Melusine manuscripts. By contextualizing the fragments against extant manuscripts and editions, this essay posits a close textual and iconographic affiliation between the UHB manuscript fragments and early French and German editions of the Melusine romances. The multilingual phases of literary transmission that I suggest informed the production of the UHB manuscript in turn contributed to the exceptional illustrative program extant in the fragments. In particular, the fragments depict Melusine and the aesthetic of the merveilleux in a manner that echoes that of their German predecessors but is original among their French counterparts. By tracing the bibliographic ancestry of the UHB fragments, this essay offers fresh insight into the complex cycles of multilingual transmission, production, and reception that shaped the Melusine romances in both manuscript and printed culture at the end of the fifteenth century.

Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra has been variously regarded as a philosophical treatise on the nature of love; as a description of the various sub-cultures within India, or sometimes even as mere entertainment – a light read. Few reviews or studies have ventured to examine the distinctively gendered nature of the narrative. This article attempts to uncover the subtle but persistent “sutra” that affirms the feminine principle throughout. The tales, beaded together in the frame narrative, connect rivers, serpents, the cult of the goddess, and the feminine principle in interesting and significant ways. It is noteworthy that this is accomplished despite the all-male coterie of characters who stud the frame narrative. The link between contemporary landscape, mythic patterns, and the feminine principle that is evidenced in the text, A River Sutra, brings to light its feminist context, one that has hitherto been overlooked.

This essay follows the dynamic of the relationship between the human being and the serpent. The author starts with the image of the black serpent winding itself around Jung’s body in The Red Book and then amplifies this image through different aspects of the serpent as it appears in various historical and imaginal contexts: the serpents of Greeks and Romans, the serpent of Eden, the serpent as the sympathetic nervous system, Aphrodite and anima mundi with a serpent tail, the serpent as the healing poisoner, and the serpent as a jinn king who both seduces and terrifies.

In this article, the interaction between animals and humans in two works by Poussin and Racine, Poussin's 'Paysage avec un homme tue par un serpent' (1648) and Racine's Phedre (1677), are considered. The focus of enquiry is firstly on the unsettling effect that untamed animals have on the ordered human world as depicted in the seventeenth century, drawn from anthropologist Tim Ingold's distinction between two kinds of animality (domain and condition). It is secondly upon the way in which both painter and play-wright force us to view such destabilising spectacles through the multi-layered response of others. Included in the analysis are readings of Poussin by various commentators, most prominently T. J. Clark, and an examination of the loss of control of Hippolyte (whose name after all means 'horse liberator/loosener') over his horses. My final argument will hinge on the idea that the perilous interplay between man and beast reveals a world of ambiguity and uncertainty.

Hardy's works reference many musical instruments used in both church (west gallery) bands and his paternal family's leadership of the Stinsford Church gallery band: while the Hardy family band consisted entirely of string instruments (violins and cello), Hardy makes frequent reference to the clarinet (rendered as clarionet and clar'net), barrel organ, oboe (hautboy), drum, tambourine and serpent — the last of these is the subject of this article. Possibly the least known instrument found in Hardy's bands — if the most exotic — the serpent, its development and use in England in the early 19 th century, is of considerable interest to organologists and students of the west gallery musical tradition. Hardy's works that speak of the serpent shed light on a colourful corner of his writing and provide an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the instrument's role and sound in nineteenth century England.

The serpent, its veneration and related symbolism, constitute one of the enigmas and mysteries of Yezidism. Many present-day Yezidi myths concerning the serpent are most probably of a secondary nature, which when attempting to explain this ancient symbol, actually place it in a much more recent mythological setting. The first part of this paper tries to reconstruct the myth and the symbolism of the (black) snake in light of its ancient cultural heritage and Gnostic doctrine. However, since this approach would entail far more in-depth and substantial research, the author has, within the context of the present paper, only pinpointed a few elements, which could be of Gnostic, or even older, origin.The second part of the article focuses on the brass image of a serpent and a branch of a wish-tree, which were discovered in Yerevan by the author. It describes theses artefacts (a sacred serpent, which resembles a dragon more than a snake, and a bamboo stick), as well as the cult, which has formed around these objects. Despite several interviews with the owner of the relics and other Yezidi dignitaries, the origin of the objects could not be fully ascertained.

Allison Hedge Coke's remarkable sequence of two narrative and sixty-four persona poems, Blood Run, gives voice to the traditions of Indigenous North American mound-building cultures and, most strikingly, to Indigenous earthworks themselves. Central to this project is the poet's literary resurrection of a destroyed snake effigy mound once central to the Blood Run earthworks site, located on what is now the Iowa-South Dakota border, which she performs by citing the terrestrial form and celestial alignments of the majestic Serpent Mound extant in southern Ohio. Analysis of the thematic and structural complex Hedge Coke builds for her “Snake Mound” and “Stone Snake Effigy” persona poems reveals the multiple ways she simulates earthworks technologies, based in methods of Indigenous science, both in the strategic placement of individual poems within the sequence and in the complex geometry that underlies their free-verse forms. This subtle mathematical patterning, based on the natural numbers four, three, and seven and on the sequence of the first twenty-four primes, provides the foundation for a contemporary earthworks poetics. Hedge Coke explicates an older form of Indigenous writing, produced not simply on the land but throughthe medium of the land itself, while recording an activist witnessing of historical and ongoing attempts at its erasure.

The meaning of Proverbs 30:18-19 has long been disputed. Most scholars interpret the Biblical couplets textually on stylistic features only; an explanation of the contextual association between the four motifs mentioned (eagle, serpent, boat, man and woman) has not yet been undertaken. The present paper aims at shedding light on the motivation for this association, taking into consideration ancient Near Eastern cuneiform compositions for the first time. It is further suggested that Proverbs 30:18-19 derived originally from a riddle that had its setting in a wedding ceremony.

It seemed to me a simple question. “What happens in this dance-drama? What is the storyline, the narrative?” I am met by puzzlement. The dancer explains that each such dance has its own set of instruments, its own special costumes and masks. For this one they use a simple, one-man marimba and the costumes come from the nearby town of Chichicastenango.

The study and analysis of some «relaciones de sucesos» prove their possible links with preaching. It could be affirmed that preaching, focusing its arguments on elements stemming from popular religious culture, descends from the pulpit to get closer to the common people. A clear example of this link is observed in the «relaciones de sucesos» analysed in this article, where the sin of lust is attacked by means of a story in which the symbol of the serpent is used., El estudio y análisis de algunas relaciones de sucesos muestra la vinculación que, en ocasiones, se puede establecer con la sermonística. Se podría decir que la predicación desciende del púlpito para inmiscuirse en espacios más cercanos al pueblo, apoyándose en elementos procedentes de la religiosidad popular, como sucede en la relación que aquí se estudia, y en la que se ataca el pecado de la lujuria por medio de un relato en el que se utiliza la simbología de la serpiente.

The Leviathan and the serpent represent a clear insight into the complexity of the mythopoetic Biblical world. The few Biblical passages where Leviathan is mentioned are balancing between mythological imagery and deep expressions of despair of the author (e.g. Psalm 74 ; Isaiah 27 and Job 3). Therefore, the correct interpretation of the texts will have to encompass the mythological background (reaching to the Ugaritic, Egyptian and other Ancient Near East influences), as well as the authors psycho-social situation. The motive of the serpent provides us with a similar context and challenge, with a slight difference: since ophidophobia is imprinted in the human consciousness it is a rather common motive in the Bible, opened to sometimes contrasting interpretations, the serpent being a symbol of wisdom, death, healing or idolatry. The motive of the serpent is only accented in as the introduction to the problem of Leviathan. Animal can not communicate with humans in a verbal manner, therefore, the animal symbolism in the Old Testament, and in the Bible as a whole, often expresses states or situations characterised by incapacity of expression. This dimension of communication opens the symbolism to a variety of interpretations, but with a clear contextual guideline: the faith of the Biblical writer. In the article two lines of interpretation are suggested, the texts expressing the experience of an individual point to an universaliation of the motive of the evil animal, setting the image in the cosmic context. On the other hand, texts with an implied communal author point to specific historical events.

Paradise Lost , much more successfully than has been recognized, meets the challenge to make understandable the curse upon the Serpent while navigating tough theological terrain. As Milton was well aware, an inexplicable and special punishment inflicted upon an innocent animal threatens to impugn God’s goodness. The text goes beyond locating accommodated meaning in the curse to depict its pronouncement as an act of accommodation to Adam and Eve’s fallen consciousness, and in particular their now-tainted view of the Serpent. Milton presents the most troubling aspects of the Serpent’s role and punishment as key elements of God’s beneficent strategy of accommodation.

This article seeks to present the different languages (emblems, Renaissance translations of classical myths, biblical exegesis) that inform the images of monsters which, as hybrid creatures blending human and animal characteristics, serve a dramatic function in Shakespeare’s King Lear . It means to question the ways in which the play links filial ingratitude with female monstrosity and Lear’s madness. Tracing the classical and medieval lineage of the monstrous bestiary (serpent, tiger, vulture) in King Lear and connecting it to emblematic readings of Shakespeare’s time, it explores how Shakespeare provides a dynamic characterisation of Goneril and Regan through their bestialisation. This study of teratogenesis then questions the notion of metamorphoses in the play. KEYWORDS: Shakespeare; King Lear; emblem; mythology; ingratitude. RESUMEN: Este articulo intenta presentar los lenguajes diferentes (los emblemas, las traducciones renacentistas de los mitos clasicos, la exegesis biblica) que informan las imagenes de los monstruos que, como criaturas hibridas que combinan caracteristicas humanas y animales, sirven una funcion dramatica en King Lear de Shakespeare. Procura interrogar las maneras en que el drama establece un vinculo entre la ingratitud filial, la monstruosidad femenina y la locura de Lear. Por trazar el linaje clasico y medieval del bestiario monstruoso (serpiente, tigre, buitre) en King Lear, y conectandolo con interpretaciones emblematicas de la epoca de Shakespeare, explora como Shakespeare nos proporciona una caracterizacion dinamica de Goneril y Regan mediante su bestializacion. Este estudio de la teratologia procede a cuestionar el concepto de las metamorfosis en el drama. PALABRAS CLAVES: Shakespeare, King Lear, emblema, mitologia, ingratitude.

The allusions surrounding the serpent in Paradise Lost foreshadow certain classical values that were denounced by Christian apologists such as Lactantius. The serpent tempts Eve to self-deification, while allusions to Roman tradition presage a pagan view of heroism and divine wrath. The acrostic spelling Satan's name, imitating that of Mars in the Aeneid, is headed by the name Scipio, whose martial exploits Lactantius deplored. Thus Milton appropriates the rhetoric directed by the early church against imperial Rome, deepening the historical dimension of an epic vitally concerned with cultural origins.