From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sat Apr 09 2005 - 20:39:33 BST
Sam Norton asked:
Hi DMB, thanks for this, which is really interesting (especially the bit
about Orpheus and the alphabet). But before I come back at length, is there
a version on-line of the Greek myth (rather than the Roman parody) (or you
can point me to a book which gives it). I must confess that the dominant
telling of the story in my mind is Neil Gaiman's in the Sandman, but that
seems to follow the 'Roman' version quite closely.
dmb answers:
An on-line version of the original? I wish!!! No, not that I know of. As I
understand it, the original version is presently being re-constructed by
scholars. Peter Kingsley has been very helpful. Joseph Cambell sort of makes
Orpheus the theme in the last two volumes of his MASKS OF GOD series. And
I've learned a few things from personal correspondance with a freshly minted
Jungian psychologist who lives in China. (I'm not making this up.) In short,
it is only through my own desperate obsession that I even learned that the
standard version was a parody, at which point I had to go back to the old
drawing board.
But now you can understand why Gaiman is of no use to me.
At the risk of looking like I suffer from delusions of grandure, I hope to
someday give Orpheus back to the world. The standard versions reduce it to a
tragic love story. This is a trivialization that breaks my heart and I would
really like to correct that. Please wish me luck. I'm gonna need it.
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