The Phoenix
An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
An "insightful cultural history of the mythical, self-immolating bird" from Ancient Egypt to contemporary pop culture by the author of The Book of Gryphons (Library Journal).
The phoenix, which rises again and again from its own ashes, has been a symbol of resilience and renewal for thousands of years. But how did this mythical bird come to play a part in cultures around the world and throughout human history? Here, mythologist Joseph Nigg presents a comprehensive biography of this legendary creature.
Beginning in ancient Egypt, Nigg's sweeping narrative discusses the many myths and representations of the phoenix, including legends of the Chinese, where it was considered a sacred creature that presided over China's destiny; classical Greece and Rome, where it appears in the writings of Herodotus and Ovid; medieval Christianity, in which it came to embody the resurrection; and in Europe during the Renaissance, when it was a popular emblem of royals. Nigg examines the various phoenix traditions, the beliefs and tales associated with them, their symbolic and metaphoric use, and their appearance in religion, bestiaries, and even contemporary popular culture, in which the ageless bird of renewal is employed as a mascot and logo.
"An exceptional work of scholarship."—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This exhaustively researched and meticulously organized study of the mythical phoenix is an exceptional work of scholarship. It traces the phoenix's emergence from uncertain origins in antiquity and development into an icon of resurrection and regeneration throughout Eastern and Western civilization. After linking the phoenix to the benu-bird depicted in Egyptian funerary texts, Nigg (Sea Monsters) shows the bird's gradual evolution through its accretion of attributes described in historical texts. Hesiod mentions the phoenix's unusually long life in the Precepts of Chiron (700 BCE); Herodotus, in his History (450-425 BCE), describes the bird's migration to the Egyptian Temple of the Sun bearing the remains of its parent; Ovid, in his first-century BCE Metamorphoses, recounts the phoenix's death and regeneration after 500 years; and the second-century CE Physiologus finally references the bird's death and rebirth in fire. By the early Christian era, the phoenix was firmly established as a symbol for death and resurrection. Nigg draws his insights from a wealth of classical texts and bestiaries, and he amply demonstrates the persistence of the phoenix as a popular emblem of renewal and immortality. Even readers familiar with just the bare bones of the phoenix myth will find this book an engrossing history of an idea.
