Hyth and Understanding of Nature in the ancient Mediterranean World.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Upon investigating "Myth and Understanding of Nature in the ancient Mediterranean World", we placed, in the first year, great importance on grasping each period's characteristic trends. As a result, it became clear that for the ancient people myths were means to understand the nature, the human being, and the working of surrounding world. This year, we devided the field to three parts ; Greek-Roman literature (T.MIZUTANI), philosophical workd (H.AKIYAMA), Early Christian-Gnostic literature (T.ONUKI) ; and tried to analyze the xt concretely. 'Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.56 and the Ancients'Notion of Thunder and Lightning by T.MIZUTANI reviews the critical role playd by a clear understanding of the ancients'notion of thunder and lightning in establishing the text of Ovid's narrative poetry which describes the Creation myth. In the next place, according to M.AKIYAMA,we can find Plato's myth of soul and Eros in his early work, "Phaedrus", as a basis of the later ideas <the world-soul> or <legislation? >. And the study of Philosophy of Poetry and Myth of Lucretius showed that his style had a tremendous influence on latter poets. And T.ONUKI examined the gnostic scriptures contained in the Nag-Hammadi-Library from the view point of sexual symbolism, and concluded the idea, "the whole visible world as womb", to be the most striking feature.