Georges Dumézil – författare

The preeminent scholar of comparative studies of Indo-European society, Georges Dumézil theorized that ancient and prehistoric Indo-European culture and literature revolved around three major functions: sovereignty, force, and fertility. This work treats these functions as they are articulated through "first king" legends found in Indian, Iranian, and Celtic epics, particularly the Mahabharata. Dumézil, drawing on an extraordinarily broad range of Indo-European sources from Scandinavia to India and offering an original and provocative analytic method, set a new agenda for studies in comparative oral literature, historical linguistics, comparative mythology, and history of religions. The Destiny of a King examines one of the "little" epics within the Mahabharata—the legend of King Yayati, a distant ancestor of the Pandavas, the heroes of the larger epic. Dumézil compares Yayati's attributes and actions with those of the legendary Celtic king Eochaid Feidlech and also finds striking similarities in the stories surrounding the daughters of these two kings, the Indian Madhavi and the Celtic Medb. When he compares these two traditions with the "first king" legends from Iran, he finds such common themes as the apportionment of the earth and the "sin of the sovereign."

A classic text that develops one prong of Dumezil's tripartite hypothesis of Indo-European tribes: the sacred sovereign. Georges Dumezil's fascination with the myths and histories of India, Rome, Scandinavia, and the Celts yielded an idea that became his most influential scholarly legacy: the tripartite hypothesis, which divides Indo-European societal functions into three classes: the sacred sovereign, the warrior, and the producer. Mitra-Varuna, originally published in 1940, concentrates on the first function, that of sovereignty. Dumezil identifies two types of rulers, the first judicial and worldly, the second divine and supernatural. These figures, both priestly, are oppositional but complementary. The title nods to these roles, referring to the gods Mitra, a rational mediator, and Varuna, an awesome religious figure. Stuart Elden's critical edition, based on the 1988 English translation by Derek Coltman, identifies variations between the first and second French editions and completes-and in places corrects-Dumezil's references. The editor's detailed introduction situates Mitra-Varuna within Dumezil's career, outlines how his treatment of its themes developed over time, and relates the book to the political controversy around his ideas. Two new appendices contain passages that did not appear in the second French edition.

Como continuación de la fundamentación monumental de Georges Dumézil, este volumen sobre mitología comparada comprende tres ensayos en los que hace un estudio de algunos episodios del Mahabharata y otros textos de origen griego, escandinavo e iranio, en los que surge gran número de coincidencias y analogías que sugieren un origen común. Estos ensayos se sitúan en la diacronía, es decir, en la historia con una pequeña zona de ultrahistoria.

La historia romana de los primeros siglos de mediados del siglo VIII a mediados del IV a.C., se presenta hoy como una obra novelesca en el sentido más preciso del término. Al margen de la historia regia preetrusca, en la que en estudios anteriores se ha destacado la humanización de antiquísimos mitos indoeuropeos como prerromanos, el autor estudia aquí los relatos que se refieren a los siglos V y IV a.C.: la guerra contra los estruscos de Veyes y las vidas de tres héroes, Camilo, Cariolano y Publícola.

Mito y epopeya es el resultado de los estudios comparativos de Georges Dumézil, dividido en tres tomos. La obra refiere la idiosincrasia, la teología y la mitología comunes en los pueblos indoiranios, griegos, latinos, germanos y celtas y expone su hipótesis de trifuncionalidad (los sagrado, la fuerza física y la abundancia) presente en el esquema cultural común a estos pueblos, según Dumézil, la cultura indoeuropea. El estudio tuvo como principales resultados: determinar la forma en que dichas culturas se plasmaron dentro de un corpus mitológico, y contribuir en el aún tortuoso conocimiento de la historias de los pueblos antiguos.