Semites and Semitism
From Philology to the Language of Myth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23212043 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Céline Trautmann-Waller (0000-0003-1850-5499, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle-Paris 3, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 2 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 346-367 |
| Publication date | 2017-08-16 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Philological Encounters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2451-9189 • E-ISSN: 2451-9197 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/24519197-12340032 |
| OpenAlex | W2758486951 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 6 |
This contribution analyses the transition from the “Semites”, which were derived, in early Semitic philology, from linguistic classification, to “Semitism,” a category combining linguistics, psychology, and cultural history. Goldziher’s critique of Renan’s understanding of Semitism not only led to a new logic of peoples in an economy of invention, transformation, and circulation but also, through the analysis of the names of the gods, to the reconstruction of a language of myth characterized by an inherent duality. With Carl Abel’s work on contradiction in primeval words, this question of duality in the language of myth is linked to Freud’s research on the language of dreams, conceived as remnant of an old primitive stratus of language. Karl Abraham’s Myths and Dreams (1909) and Otto Rank’s The Birth of the Hero (1909) also reveal the inspiration early psychoanalysis found in some reflections on Semitism: both combined insights from Semitic philology and the science of mythology with those of dream interpretation. When Freud finally offered his own interpretation of Moses in Moses and Monotheism (1939), his psychoanalytical reading revealed the potential of the philological and psychological reconstruction of the language of myth: he also read the names as traces of circulation and the canonical text as an archive of conflicts, but transformed traces into symptoms.
Art · Dream · Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · Literature · Monotheism · Mythology · Philology · Semitic languages · Sociology · Theology · History · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Medieval and Classical Philosophy · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Theology, History, Judaism, Christianity
Sigmund Freud
Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion
My Reminiscences of Ignace Goldziher
The Near East study tour diary of Ignaz Goldziher
I Maestri Della Germania. Gottingen 1770-1820
Nouvelles considérations sur le caractère général des peuples sémitiques et en particulier sur leur tendance au monothéisme
| Citations per year | 0.2 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |