Goddesses of Sun and Moon (Circe/Aphrodite/Medea/Niobe)

by Karl Kerényi

English, German (translation)

Genres: Mythology, History, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction

84 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1944

About the author

Károly (Carl, Karl) Kerényi, Ph.D., (University of Budapest, 1919), was one of the founders of modern studies in Greek Mythology, and professor of classical studies and history of religion at the Universities of Szeged and Pécs, Hungary.

Karl Kerenyi is also published under the names Carl Kerenyi and Károly Kerényi, in French as Charles Kerényi and in Italian as Carlo Kerényi.

Reviews

[Padma]

This is not by Michael Lerner, but Karl Kerenyi, the esteemed friend and colleague of Carl Jung. Don't even know who Michael Lerner is. Fascinating essays on Circe, Medea, Aphrodite and Niobe. I purchased the book for the essay on Circe, after whom my daughter is named. The essay on Aphrodite, though, is most fascinating. Kerenyi is a difficult read, but there are moments (many of them) when every word must be attended to with deep consideration, and when that happens the reading is luminous.

[Narkitsa Orada]

The first Kerenyi book I ever read was Eleusis. I loved it. In that one, he does a great job of blending a historical analysis of the Eleusinian Mysteries with a Jungian analysis of their psychological meaning.

This one . . . The reasoning is circular. Aphrodite is a solar goddess because Kerenyi says she is. Prometheus is a moon god for equally mysterious reasons. The conclusions are unclear. Kerenyi spends a lot of time arguing that various mythological figures are all connected to one another in a complex lunisolar mythos, but he never gets around to explaining what all of it means. Most of the essay on Aphrodite is actually about Hera, for no particularly clear reason. All in all, it seemed muddled.

[Marco Sán Sán]

Es interesante como Kerényi recuerda la descendencia luminosa de la gran asesina Medea y la hechicera Circe para elaborar como lo divino se comporta no en polaridades sino en nexos muchas veces oscuros donde los pecados más crueles no simplemente son un impetus de malos ánimos sino formando parte de la familia Olímpica, teniendo estirpe divina, tales acciones no se pueden juzgar en lo inmediato por terribles que parezcan sino rastreando el linaje con lupa para encontrar los motivos de las atrocidades ya no pertenecientes a lo salvaje sino a la barbarie.

[Jaime]

Absolute perfection.
Always.

[Nani Chen]

As usual, a pleasure to read.

[Rjyan]

In all these hyperfocused Kerenyi books he goes real deep on a specific god or gods for a breezy ~80 pages or so, comparing big handfuls of varying regional myths and thoroughly exploring what the constants and differences in the stories tell us about the wider historical perspective of that god's character and functions, as opposed to books which cover a large part of the pantheon and typically present the summary or amalgamation of these beliefs most widely accepted as canon. That said, it really helps to have a pretty decent familiarity with the generalized story of the particular god before going into one of these books-- I would not recommend them as a starting point.

[Alix Amnamare]

Kerenyi's books are always fascinating to read, even if some of them are a little strange. (This is one of the stranger ones.) He makes a few leaps I can't really follow, but I find this book valuable because he highlights some facets of the figures he discusses that I haven't commonly seen mentioned - he is the only author I've found to deeply discuss the Niobe story, for example, even if (to me) that seemed the least-supported part of this book.

If you're interested in Greek mythology, this is worth reading just because it's thought-provoking.