Description
Book SynopsisThis edited volume provides a comparative exploration of corresponding concepts of the abyss in various languages and cultures. Fourteen chapters investigate ancient cultures such as Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Old Norse, but also more contemporary American, African and Asian languages, such as Hawaiian, Umbundu, Chinese and Khasi, as well as European languages, such as German, Estonian, English, French, Polish and Russian. The book combines ethnolinguistics with history of ideas, literature, folklore, religion and translation, based on the conviction that language and our linguistic concepts give evidence of and shape our ideas about the world and about ourselves.
Trade Review"Brill's dynamic peer-reviewed series Textxet: Studies in Comparative Literature has since the mid-1990s been publishing monographs and edited collections on a range of subfields within the capacious field of comparative literature. The nearly 100 scholarly monographs published as part of Textxet engage rigorously with theories of literature, world literature, and literature and thought from around the globe, frequently from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives. Soon to be fully digitized and accessible, Textxet has contributed significantly to the study of comparative literature, broadly conceived, in Europe and North America, and to literature studies more broadly, particularly in the discipline's many emerging subfields. Publishing the work of both established scholars and recent Ph.D.'s, Textxet gives scholars of all generations a platform for sharing their best work, and inspiring vigorous scholarly conversations" --Karen Thornber, Harvard University, USA, author of Global Healing: Literature, Advocacy, Care(2020)
Table of ContentsForeword Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Abyss as a Concept for Cultural Theory, and German Abgrund: The Ambivalence of the Human Marko Pajević Part 1 Ancient Cultures 1 Praising God’s Creation in the Abyss: tǝhōm in Biblical and Apocalyptic Literature Urmas Nõmmik 2 The Origins of the ἄΒυσσος in Greek Janika Päll 3 The Birth of the Abyss in the Rigveda Sven Sellmer 4 Before the Creation in Old Norse Mythology—Empty Abyss or Crowded Place Daniel Sävborg Part 2 American, African and Asian Cultures 5 Hānau ka Pō: The Abyss in Hawaiian Thought Michael David Kaulana Ing 6 The Void Against Transparency: Translating the Abyss into Umbundu Iracema Dulley 7 Abyss, Chaos, and Emptiness. A Journey to the Depths of the Chinese Intellectual Tradition Lisa Indraccolo 8 The Abyss in the Indigenous Khasi Worldview: The Search for Traditional Models Margaret Lyngdoh and Laur Järv Part 3 European Cultures 9 Journey to the North: The Experience of the Abyss in Mythology and Philosophy Jaanus Sooväli and Hasso Krull 10 An Exploration of the Meaning and Usage of Abyss in English Violeta Stojicić 11 In Search of Abyssos in Contemporary French Through Lexical Pathways Arkadiusz Koselak-Marechal 12 The Abyss in Polish Adam Głaz 13 The Doubling of Bezdna: Notes on the Russian Poetic Concept of Abyss Roman Leibov
