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Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (Mythos Books)

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Indispensable, for anyone interested in archaic rite, comparative religion, or ancient Greek culture.

Reading and studying Jane Harrison's Prolegomena was such a pleasure. Her brilliance and wide knowledge shines on every page! Even today (Professor Harrison died of leukemia in 1928) modern scholars and intellectuals such as Walter Burkert and Camille Paglia continue to draw on her magnificent work. There are particular passages -- on ecstasy and asceticism, for example -- of such beauty that they seem to transcend scholarship and border on the divine. Her work is so thorough one begins to understand the weight of a great and complex society which myth itself only brushes. Her other works, including Themis and the dazzlingly concise Epilogemena also enlighten and inspire, but Prolegomena is the place to start.

Although published in the early 1900s and outdated in certain areas, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion is still an essential read for anyone interested in Greek Religion. Perhaps the best description of the book would be to call it the Greek Golden Bough.

In this classic work, Harrison sought to uncover the primitive substratum of Greek religion, so rather than focusing on the
Olympian deities, she spends the better part of the book discussing ghosts, 'demons', and the chthonic deities. The religious landscape that she illuminates is therefore nothing like the cheery and rational world of the Olympians. The dark, the creepy and the uncanny tend to predominate.

The book is very well-written, and the author's fascination with her material is infectious. I found it so powerful a reading experience that I can only describe Prolegomena in terms of a kind of anthropological prose poetry. Although its ostensible topic is a rather specialized and obscure field of enquiry, one comes away from the book with a feeling of having gained a deeper insight into that most general of topics, the human condition.

I have to agree with the other reviewer who emphasizes that this is not a book for those completely unfamiliar with ancient Greek religion. Moreover, parts of it might be frustrating and tedious for readers without knowledge of the ancient Greek language, since Harrison is constantly engaged in the elucidiation and discussion of Greek religious terminology.

All in all, an unforgettable book that, unlike most academic studies, is a piece of great literature.

This is no easy reading, and it is not for people totally without basic knowledge. Harrison, a great scholar who wrote in the 20s, won't tell you who Athena is- you should have a basic idea in order to enjoy the complex stories about her and all the Olympian deities! We didn't get the background told at school, only the stage when belief in the Gods was actually dead, preserved only as a cultural phenomenon. Harrison will tell you about the time when belief was ALIVE. If you want to know about the ceremonies, the secret rites, the hidden names, the shift of power from goddess to god... and in all this in a factual, reliable manner- then this is the book you should read!

Jane Ellen Harrison was a ground breaking scholar in the field of mythology--she was one of a group of what was called the "Cambridge Ritualists" who believed that contrary to prior belief that myths arose from rituals rather than rituals from myths.

Her primary thesis in Prolegomena is that the religion of the Greeks and Romans has been only selectively reported in order to support a vision of rational, highly civilized people as the progenitors of western thought. Scholarship of the 19th century was founded on the notion that "the integrity of Western Civilization depends upon the exceptionality of the Greeks" (p. xx). This vision was developed by the Romantic movement to support a superior intellectual foundation to western civilization that emerged from the Greek and Romans.

Harrison argues that in fulfilling this desire to have exalted ancestors, the true religion of the Greeks has been overlooked. Her scholarship is focused on what has not been noticed-her conclusion is that the Olympian gods of Homer are the final product of centuries of evolution from a more primitive collection of chthonic deities or forces.

Harrison is more interested in the earlier forms of religion--the underworld beings that were placated to prevent evil. She is a master at examining greek texts and art to delineate these ancient deities. As Harrison says: "Great things in literature, Greek plays for example, I most enjoy when behind their bright splendours I see moving darker and older shapes"

This book can be utilized as a reference to understand certain Greek myths more easily--or read it straight through to get a more thorough understanding of the world of Greek mysticism!!

I was searching for an answer to the mystery that was in the Greek Mysteries. Harrison provides the answers. Prolegomena provides a very detailed account of the Mysteries that are rooted in worship of the the Chthonic (Earth) Gods that preceded the Olympian deities. The reading level of this book is probably the most difficult I have ever experienced in a book that I am reading purely for pleasure. You must have a burning interest in the field of ancient Greek religion to be able to appreciate this book for the great work it is.

Jaime Gomez

Although partly out-of-date, Jane Harrison's analysis of 'neglected' aspects of Greek religion proves these aspects to be 'essential'. By dissecting rites, ceremonies, festivities and mysteries, she exposes the real obsessions of the Ancient Greek (Plato included). Instead of being 'possessed by a set of conceptions based on Periclean Athens', she shows astonishingly that Ancient Greece was still a totally irrational, savage and primitive society, dominated by ignorance and fear. Her picture is far more gloomy than the rosy one drawn by other scholars, who imposed their own language on ancient societies ('We should not monotheize').

In Ancient Greece, there was no 'civil' law. Law was essentially magic and in the first place a curse. People thought that they could injure their enemies by curse tablets, swathed figures ... In Plato's 'Laws', people who injured other citizens by magic had to die.

Ignorance and fear concerning the souls of the death, sprites, ghosts and demons were a fertile ground for theology (better: demonology). Evil spirits reflected the population's own savage, cruel and irrational passions and relations. (Porphyry: 'No Greek sacrifice of a camel or an elephant').
The Greek believed that evil was a physical infection that could be transferred on animals and human beings. The latter could be sacrificed in order to purify the rest of the population. One is astonished to learn that human sacrifices still took place in the 5th century BC. 'Pharmakoi' were kept and fed at the public expense in order to be slaughtered in rites of Aversion (riddance of evil spirits).
Winds were believed to be ghosts who had to be placated by sacrifices. The latter (humans were better than animals) took also place for mandic reasons.

In Greek theology, there were 'no gods at all', only conceptions of the human mind. Theology's formulary was 'panta rei'.
New gods developed out of heroes or crystallized out of a gentler form of ghost or were imported from other regions. One of the new gods was Dionysos coming from Thrace. He was the god of all growing things and of physical intoxication. His double was the god of spiritual intoxication: Orpheus (Orphism). The latter Mystery had a profound influence on Plato and his theory of the immortality of the soul (essentialism).

The author's analysis of the Eleusian Mysteries and Orphism are interesting but partly out-of-date, because new sources of information were discovered after the publication of her book.
For Eleusis I recommend G. Meautis's 'The Mysteries of Eleusis', and for Orphism, W. Guthrie's 'Orpheus and Greek Religion'.

This book contains excellent graphic material, which is magisterially analyzed by the author.
Harrison's book is still a must for all those interested in Ancient Greece. It is the work of a superb free mind.

The most accessible aspect of Greek religion, which any basic education on the Greeks reveals, is the Olympian pantheon and the tales of gods and goddesses as passed down through literature. This book opens up a much deeper and more obscure subject for study: the ritual practices and how they underlie and provide explanations for what otherwise would appear to be rather fanciful stories. It certainly gets into the thickets in places, and there are many arcane references, but the material coheres in a very interesting way and rewards the curious reader.

The author begins by explaining that there were two forms of ritual: the Olympian, which was service to the gods in the form of sacrifices through a communion or social gathering, and the chthonic, which involved gloomy, nighttime proceedings of riddance or purification. It was this last form of ritual, the gloomy kind, that provided the underlying basis for the ancient Greek festivals and opened the way for a more profound religious impulse, that of Dionysus and Orpheus. Purification here was meant as a physical riddance of evil influences from spirits, especially of the dead, resulting from a blood feud or some violent action provoking vengence. A example of the ritual was the expulsion of the pharmakos (human scapegoat) at the Thargelia harvest festival.

Dionysus represented a return to nature and was associated with the harvest, particularly of grapes, and was the god of wine and intoxication. He was depicted at Delphi as having opposite characteristics to Apollo, as being concerned with the emotions rather than reason. A number of wild, unrestrained mythic beings such as Satyrs and Maenads were considered his attendants. The author suggests that besides the wild, uncontrolled revelries and excess that resulted from his worship, there was a life-promoting aspect that involved inspiration - where the Maenads became Muses - and also the "sacramental mystery of life and nutrition." The religious impulse of Dionysus that grew out of the experience of intoxication and inspiration was the mystical notion of becoming one with god.

It appears that the Orphic movement was based on a real man named Orpheus and that he was a prophet and a teacher, who especially used music - playing the lyre - to soothe and refine the wild beast of nature and to lead humankind along spiritual paths. The Orphics refined the religious impulse of Dionysus of mystical union and established a ritual of mystery practices. The underlying theme, the one especially adopted by the Orphics and also the Pythagoreans, harkened back to the urge of the ancients for purification, for riddance of evil spirits contaminating the physical world. In Plato, this purification was extended beyond the physical to the psychological, and involved discernment and cleansing the soul of defilements through self-knowledge.

I first obtained this book with the intent of using it as a reference, but soon became immersed enough to read it through to the end. I found it to be an awesome work of scholarship that in a general sense opened my eyes to the depths of Greek mythology and the difficulties of interpretation. I don't know how much fresh material has been added since this book was last updated in the 1920s, but to my mind this is bedrock stuff.

What a pleasure to read this literature; a toure-de-force on the subject. Abuntant footnotes AND so many original sources IN ANCIENT GREEK you can almost teach yourself the language. Mandatory text for the student/amateur of ancient Greece. This preview relates to the 1962 Merlin press edition, reprinted 1980.

Unfortunately the character recognition software used by Google to digitize this book was inadequate to the task and has created a text essentially unusable. Clearly no one has done even the most cursory proof-reading before inflicting this on readers anxious to look into this renowned work. Disappointing.

Totally agree with Silja Harel's review. An excellent book by an expert on the subject.The Greek translation is also very good.