Abstract
The mythopoetics of stone, rocks and mountains is archaic, universal and ambivalent.
The mythopoetical meaning of stones depends on a person’s way of life and on his/her relations with the environment. Stones are enemies to the tiller, and soil provides him with food. Stone is lifeless and also dangerous to life – stone is both a weapon and means of punishment. A stray person is stoned to death; he is turned into a stone statue or locked up in a stone cell. At the same time stone has assumed preserving role of life – a fortress on a rock is a safe shelter, hearthstones keep warm, millstones grind grains.
Stones, rocks and mountains mark the sanctification of place, they are the core of it and at the same time a boundary between profane and sacred, everyday and eternal world. As such, they are setting up the cosmic order, as well the phenomenal order in our lifeworld.
Among the natural materials stone is lasting, strong and durable, but also rigid, static and constant as well. As such, it is a means of bringing the time flow to a standstill, halting a moment and spacing the time.
Stone is the bearer of cultural memory, the supporter of both body and place memory, the means of recollection, reminiscence and memorialization. Mortal body finds immortalization in stone, and will lead its eternal life as a peace of sculpture; stone buildings are the reflections of history; gravestones, monuments and stone mounds prevent life from sinking into oblivion.
A recurrent subject in arts and myth is that of bringing a stone figure back to life. Stones support the belief in incarnation and re-incarnation. In art and religion has stone made it possible to turn imperceptible into perceptible, invisible into visible.
Stone immortalizes mental values, be it from mythical, religious, political, social, artistic or other forms of cultural consciousness.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Anttonen, Veikko 1992. Püha mõiste rahvausundis (Concept of Sacred in Folk Religion), in Akadeemia 12, Tartu, Estonia: EKL, 2514–2535
Bernstein, Boris 2002. Mimesis ja inkarnatsioon II (Mimesis and Incarnation), in Studies on Art and Architecture 11, Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus, 327–351
Casey, S. Edward 2000. Remembering. A Phenomenological Study. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press
Eliade, Mircea 1962. Mephistopheles et l’androgyne. Paris: Callimard
Eliade, Mircea 1989. The Myth of Eternal return or, Cosmos and History. Transl. Willard R. Trask. London, New York: Arkana
Gibson, James J. 1979. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Heidegger, Martin 1996. The Origin of the Work of Art. Basic Writings. Ed. David Farrell Krell. London: Routledge
Ingold, Tim 2000. The Perception of the Environment. London and New York: Routledge
Lotman, Juri 2006. Kultuurisemiootika (Semiotics of Culture). Tallinn: Olion
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 1968. The Visible and the Invisible. Evanston: Northwestern University Press
Schama, Simon 1995. Landscape and Memory. London: HarperCollins Publisher
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lehari, K. (2009). Mythopoetics of Stone. In: Tymieniecka, AT. (eds) Phenomenology and Existentialism in the Twentieth Century. Analecta Husserliana, vol 104. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2979-9_23
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2979-9_23
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2978-2
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2979-9
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)