Thesis (MPhil (Ancient Studies))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The aim of this thesis is to explore the purpose of monster figures by investigating the relationship between these creatures and the cultures in which they are generated. It focuses specifically on the human-animal hybrid monsters in the mythology, literature and art of ancient Greece. It attempts to answer the question of the purpose of these monsters by looking specifically at the nature of manhorse monsters and the ways in which their dichotomous internal and external composition challenged the cultural taxonomy of ancient Greece. It also looks at the function of monsters in a ritual context and how the Theseus myth, as initiation myth, and the Minotaur, as hybrid monster, conforms to the expectations of ritual monsters. The investigation starts by considering the history and uses of the term “monster” in an attempt to arrive at a reasonable definition of monstrosity. In aid of this definition, attention is also given to themes that recur when considering monster beings. This provides a basis from which the hybrid monsters of ancient Greece, the centaur and Minotaur in particular, can be considered. The next section of the thesis looks into the attitudes to animals prevalent in ancient Greece. The cultural value of certain animal types and even certain body parts have to be taken account, and the degree to which these can be traced to the nature and actions of the hybrid monster has to be considered. The main argument is divided in two sections. The first deals with the centaur as challenger to Greek cultural taxonomy. The centaur serves as an eminent example of how human-animal hybrid monsters combine the familiar and the foreign, the Self and the Other into a single complex being. The nature of this monster is examined with special reference to the ways in which the centaur, as proponent of chaos and wilderness, stands in juxtaposition to the ideals of Greek civilisation. The second section consists of an enquiry into the purpose of the hybrid monster and considers the Minotaur’s role as a facilitator of transformation. The focus is directed towards the ritual function of monsters and the ways in which monsters aid change and renewal both in individuals and in communities. By considering the Theseus-myth and the role of the Minotaur in the coming-of-age of the Attic hero as well as the city of Athens itself, the ritual theory is given application in ancient Greece. The conclusion of this thesis is that hybrid monsters, as manifestations of the internal dichotomy of man and the tenuous relationship between order and chaos, played a critical role in the personal and communal definition of man in ancient Greece. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die doelstelling van hierdie tesis is om die sin van monsters te ondersoek deur te kyk na die verhouding wat bestaan tussen hierdie wesens en die gemeenskappe waarbinne hulle hul ontstaan het. Die tesis fokus spesifiek op die mens-dier hibriede monster in die mitologie, literatuur en kuns van antieke Griekeland. Dit probeer om tot ‘n slotsom te kom oor die bestaansrede van monsters deur te kyk na die aard van die man-perd monster. Hierdie wese se tweeledige samestelling – met betrekking tot beide sy interne en eksterne komposisie – het ‘n wesenlike bedreiging ingehou vir die kulturele taksonomie van die antieke Grieke. Die tesis kyk ook na die rol, van monsters in die konteks van rituele gebeure. Die mite van Theseus as ‘n mite met rituele verbintenisse, en die Minotaurus as hibriede monster, word dan oorweeg om te bepaal wat die ooreenstemming is met die verwagtinge wat daargestel is vir rituele monsters. Ten einde ‘n redelike definisie van monsteragtigheid daar te stel, begin die ondersoek deur oorweging te skenk aan die geskiedenis en die gebruike van die woord “monster”. Ter ondersteuning van hierdie definisie word daar ook aandag geskenk aan sekere temas wat herhaaldelik opduik wanneer monsters ter sprake kom. Dit skep ‘n basis vir die ondersoek na die hibriede monsters van antieke Griekeland, en meer spesifiek na die kentaurus en die Minotaurus. Die tesis oorweeg ook die houding van die antieke Griekse beskawing teenoor diere. Die kulturele waarde van sekere soorte diere, en selfs seker ledemate van diere, moet in ag geneem word wanneer die hibriede monsterfiguur behandel word. Aandag moet geskenk word aan die maniere waarop die assosiasies wat die Grieke met diere gehad het, oorgedra word na die aard en handelinge van die monsterfiguur. Die hoofargument van die tesis word in twee dele uiteengesit. Die eerste gedeelte behandel die kentaurus as uitdager van die kulturele taksonomie van die antieke Grieke. Die kentaurus dien as ‘n uitstekende voorbeeld van die manier waarop die mens-dier monster dit wat bekend is en dit wat vreemd is, die Self en die Ander, kombineer in een komplekse wese. Die aard van hierdie wese word ondersoek met spesifieke verwysing na die maniere waarop die kentaurus, as voorstander van die ongetemde en van chaos, in teenstelling staan teenoor die ideale van die Griekse beskawing. Die tweede gedeelte vors die doel van die hibriede monster na en oorweeg die Minotaurus se rol as bevorderaar van transformasie. Hier word gefokus op die rol van die monster in ’n rituele konteks en die maniere waarop monsters verandering en vernuwing teweegbring in enkelinge sowel as in gemeenskappe. Hierdie teorie word van toepassing gemaak op antieke Griekeland deur die mite van Theseus en die rol van die Minotaurus te oorweeg binne die konteks van die proses van inburgering wat beide die held en sy stad, Athene, ondergaan. Die gevolgtrekking van hierdie tesis is dat hibriede monsters, as uitbeeldings van die interne tweeledigheid van die mens sowel as van die tenger verband tussen orde en chaos in die wêreld, ‘n noodsaaklike rol gespeel het in die persoonlike en sosiale definisie van die individu in antieke Griekeland.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, [1918] / Also available in digital form on the Internet Archive Web site.

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf.

Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Western Sydney, Hawkesbury, 1998. / At foot of title: Its origins, development, rationale and implications with performance script, performance video, reviews, evaluation and potential as a therapeutic paradigm considered. "Offered in submission for a Doctorate of Philosophy in the School of Social Ecology, University of Western Sydney" Bibliography : leaves 268-275.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, (1918).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Michigan, (1918).

The thesis examines the religious topography of Arcadia through two particular aspects: the built and the natural landscape, and how each relates to human communities, their places of living, and their understanding of the world around. It relies on the assumption commonly made in the field that, since ritual practice was of prevalent importance for the Greeks, cult sites are the most important places for the communities, and therefore they can tell us a lot about the people who built, visited and looked after them. The first part rests on the acknowledgement that sanctuaries are places of interaction for a certain community of cult (which can but need not overlap with a given polis) and explores how they can be indicators of social change, defined here as responses to changes with large impact on the human milieu. These changes and their response articulated in sacred space are identified in four chapters. The first sets the stage and surveys the known sacred sites of Arcadia at the end of the Bronze Age and during the Early Iron Age. The second looks at how the building of temples after the eighth century indicates a significant change in the way communities were structured in Arcadia. The third looks at how Arcadian sanctuaries responded to the increased religious mobility of the Classical and Hellenistic period. Finally, chapter four evaluates the impact of the Roman conquest on Arcadian religious sites. The second part explores how myths and rationalising discourses allowed the Greeks to make sense of the salient characteristics and numen of their surrounding natural landscape. Each of the three chapters departs from a situation observed in Arcadia by ancient sources and examines the responses articulated to explain it. Among the variety of topics to pursue, three have been selected because they exemplify a typical characteristic of Arcadia: its wetness. They also allow spatial areas that were less prominent in part one to be explored. The first chapter investigates the attribution of Mycenaean waterworks in Arcadia to Herakles in myth. The second chapter examines the connection made in ancient sources between Poseidon's lordship over the Peloponnese, earthquakes, floods and cults of Poseidon Hippios in Arcadia. Finally, the last chapter explores the apparent contradiction of having infernal rivers observable in the world of the living, such as the Styx flowing in the Aroania Mountains.

The principles of ancient Greek architecture have persevered through millennia, their impact ebbing and flowing perhaps, but still considered a fundamental layer on which Western architectural traditions have been built. Keeping in mind the pragmatic, aesthetic, and ideological influence Greek architecture has continued to have, my dissertation turns to contemporaneous sources to gauge the Greeks’ reception of their own sacred architecture. Scholars of Greek religion tend to agree that the temple was not a necessary component of ritual – boundary stones delineating sacred space and an altar on which communication with the divine was sought through sacrifice and non-sanguinary offerings were enough for religious rites. Why, then, were considerable effort and funds put towards the construction of temples, often monumental and virtually ubiquitous across the Greek landscape? Paradoxically, why is Greek literature, an art form that valued ekphrastic accounts of artworks (Homer’s description of the shield of Achilles [Iliad 18.478-608] is an oft-cited example) mostly silent on sacred architecture save for few laconic and formulaic appellations and rather dry descriptions (Greek traveler Pausanias, for instance, focused on sanctuary histories and votive offerings but was rather disinterested in architecture)? There appears to be a disparity between etic and emic perceptions of Greek sacred architecture, but, in fact, ancient evidence proves otherwise and demonstrates that artists were mindful of the potency of sacred structures. My dissertation pieces together their visual testimonies, particularly in vase painting which is arguably the most prolific and far-reaching medium of Greek art. Through an exhaustive perusal of museum collections, archives, and pottery-focused publications, the present study assembles a collection of nearly three-hundred vase paintings with depictions of sacred architecture and covering a time period of around three centuries from the Archaic period (seventh-century BCE) to the end of the Late Classical period (late fourth century BCE). The majority of the objects originate in Athens and its environs (Attika) and Magna Graecia. Based on this chronological and geographical scope, the study examines the images in four chapters: Attic black-figure vase paintings, Attic red-figure vase paintings with non-mythological subjects, Attic red-figure vase paintings with depictions of myth, and South Italian vase paintings. Within these chapters, the typology of architectural elements (e.g., freestanding columns, temple facades) and subject matter (e.g., myths, quotidian activities) constitute the primary criteria with which the images have been categorized. This extensive collection of vase paintings provides manifold insights into not only the reception of sacred architecture but also architectural elements as effective pictorial motifs. A great number of the depictions can be connected to “real” prototypes and, in some cases, distinct religious practices. While previous studies have taken a similar approach only to fixate on the discrepancies between prototypes and what architectural depictions can tell us about ancient building practices, the present study argues that vase painters rarely, if at all, intended to reproduce existing structures. Thus, the evidence should be used to study the ways in which artists reflected and refracted how buildings shaped and were shaped by the needs of their users. Creating an autonomous visual language built on abbreviation, elision, and synthesis, artists, in fact, rendered structures fit for the pictorial world. Their aim was not exactitude but rather verisimilitude – temples, shrines, portals, sanctuaries that were guided by but never unequivocally subservient to reality. The semiotic analysis of architecture, meanwhile, considers the aesthetics of vase painting and the objecthood of the vase. Beyond their face value (i.e., signifying sacred structures), elements like columns and simplified temples configure the surface of the vase into distinct zones, thus denoting spatio-temporal transitions, and hierarchize figures within the depicted events. Moreover, there are numerous instances where the pictorial frame is transformed into a built environment itself with the use of architecture – a practice that urges the viewer to contemplate the tension between the flatness of the ‘canvas’ and the habitable spaces defined by the juxtaposition of figures and structures.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2003. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: "The growth of any discipline depends on the ability to communicate and develop ideas, and this in turn relies on a language which is sufficiently detailed and flexible" (Singh 1997: 59). Many metaphors relating to creativity are too misleading, confusing, and restricted in scope for a meaningful exploration of the phenomenon and its fluctuating social and cultural contexts. Given the Muse's long-term association with literature, philosophy, education, and more recently, the fine arts and other "creative" fields, an analysis of this concept may provide a unique opportunity to gain insight into the "mechanisms" underlying the creative process. Since affiliation with the Muse appears to have signalled attainment of critical cultural and/or social status by cultural practitioners in various societies, from the ancient to the present (a category which was broadened substantially), it is thus logical to assume this concept encompasses and has accumulated characteristics particular to the creative process as historically and currently valued in Western culture. Given the limited scope of the thesis, I have focused on specific concerns: 1) Provide an overview of the history, origin and development of the concept via specific examples ranging from antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern. 2) Assess the changes which have occurred in the development of the concept, and postulate likely causes: such as for example, the impact of an increased focus on the visual - and by extension, the physical - due to a more literate populace, on a concept originally conceived of as experienced through predominantly audial means. 3) Identify closely related concepts, the characteristics of which may have played a role in the formulation of the initial concept, along with those integrated into it, to form the modern version of the Muse: examples include the influence of the myth of Pygmalion on notions regarding the poet's relationship with both material and Muse; and the consequences of an amalgamation of characteristics of Aphrodite with those of the pastoral Muse. 4) Explore the extent to which the Muse-poet interaction can reveal fundamental aspects of the creative process and its main components: the differences between the public invocation and experience of the Muse in an oral context, as opposed to the privately experienced Muse of the literate poet; also, the changes imposed on the concept's perceived means of functioning due to its extension to the practice of the visual arts; and the correlation between the Jungian notion of the anima and aspects of the Muse. 5) Postulate the fundamental aspects of the creative process as revealed by analysis of the concept of the Muse for further investigation. In brief then, the main intention of this thesis is simply to examine by analysis of particular examples, the feasibility of applying the concept of the Muse as metaphor through which to identify for further exploration, issues and themes relating to the production and changes in social assessment of creative enterprises. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: "The growth of any discipline depends on the ability to communicate and develop ideas, and this in turn relies on a language which is sufficiently detailed and flexible" (Singh 1997: 59). Menige metafore verbonde aan kreatiwiteit is te misleidend, verwarrend, of beperk in omvang vir 'n betekenisvolle ondersoek van díe verskynsel en die fluktueerende sosiale en kulturele kontekste daarvan. Gesien in die lig van die Muse se langtermyn assosiasie met letterkunde, filosofie, opvoedkunde en meer onlangs, the skone kunste en ander "kreatiewe" velde, mag 'n analise van die konsep moontlik 'n unieke geleentheid bied om insig te verkry in die onderliggende "meganismes" van die kreatiewe proses. Aangesien affiliasie met die Muse blyk om die bereiking van kritiese kulturele en/of sosiale status, deur kulturele praktisyne in verskeie samelewings, van die antieke tot die huidige ('n kategorie wat aansienlik uitgebou is) aan te dui, is dit dus logies om te aanvaar dat die konsep alomvattend is van eienskappe kenmerkend van die kreatiewe proses, soos geskiedkundig en huidig op prys gestel in die Westerse kultuur. Gegewe die beperkte bestek van die tesis, is gefokus op spesifieke kwessies: 1) Verskaf 'n oorsig van die geskiedenis, oorsprong, en ontwikkeling van die konsep deur spesifieke voorbeelde, in omvang vanaf die antieke, die middeleuse periode, en die moderne. 2) Evalueer die veranderinge wat voorgekom het in die ontwikkeling van die konsep, en veronderstel moontlike redes daarvoor: soos byvoorbeeld, die impak van vermeerderde fokus op die visuele - en daarby die fisiese - as gevolg van 'n meer geletterde bevolking, op 'n konsep wat aanvanklik hoofsaaklik ouditief ondervind is. 3) Identifiseer verwante konsepte, die eienskappe waarvan moontlik 'n rol kon gespeel het in die formulasie van die aanvanklike konsep, asook die wat daarby geintegreer is, om die moderne weergawe van die Muse te vorm: voorbeelde sluit in, die invloed van die mite van Pigmalion op begrippe aangaande die digter se verhouding met beide die materiaal en Muse; en die gevolge van 'n samesmelting van Aphrodite se karaktertrekke met die van die pastorale Muse. 4) Ondersoek die mate waartoe die Muse-digter verhouding fundamentele aspekte van die kreatiewe proses en sy hoof komponente kan ontbloot: soos die verskille tussen die publieke invokasie en ervaring van die Muse in 'n verbale konteks, in teenstelling met die geletterde digter wat die Muse privaat ondevind; asook die veranderinge temeegebring op die persepsies aangaande die konsep se funksionering as gevolg van die uitbreiding daarvan tot die visuele kunste; en die korrelasie tussen die Jungiaanse idee van die anima, en aspekte van die Muse. 5) Veronderstel die fundamentele aspekte van die kreatiewe proses, soos ontbloot deur analise van die konsep van die Muse vir verdere ondersoek. Kortliks dan, die hoof voorneme van hierdie tesis is om deur analise van spesifieke voorbeelde, die uitvoerbaarheid te ondersoek om die konsep van die Muse toe te pas as metafoor vir verdere navorsing waardeur kwessies en temas, aangaande die produksie en veranderinge in sosiale waardering van kreatiewe ondernemings, ge-identifiseer kan word.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Zürich, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. [415]-424) and indexes.