The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams
Early Greek Hermeneutics and Its Sources
- Publisher's listprice GBP 105.00
-
47 407 Ft (45 150 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 4 741 Ft off)
- Discounted price 42 667 Ft (40 635 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
47 407 Ft
Availability
Not yet published.
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher Princeton University Press
- Date of Publication 16 June 2026
- Number of Volumes Print PDF
- ISBN 9780691263557
- Binding Hardback
- No. of pages336 pages
- Size 234x155 mm
- Language English 700
Categories
Long description:
The first book-length study of dream interpretation in classical Greece
Long before Freud, dreams and how to make sense of them fascinated ancient thinkers. In The Ancient Interpretation of Dreams, Mirjam Kotwick traces a continuous intellectual practice of dream interpretation across a range of ancient Greek texts, including those from Homer, Aeschylus, Herodotus, Antiphon, the Hippocratic doctors, Plato, and Aristotle. In these works, dreams signify meaning in indirect, distorted, figurative, and metaphorical ways. The authors employ what Kotwick terms the “hermeneutics of similarity” to uncover the message of a dream by identifying (obvious or nonobvious) similarities between its literal expression and its hidden meaning. This method of interpretation remained consistent, whether authors understood dreams as messages from the gods or as results of physiological processes within the dreamer’s body.
Kotwick shows that ancient Greeks used their study of dreams to reflect on larger questions of interpretation, figurative language, and metaphor—before the concept of metaphor existed. Philosophers and scientists connected their interest in dreams to their own theories in ethics, cosmology, medicine, biology, linguistics, and literary criticism. It is in the interpretation of dreams, Kotwick argues, that we can see early Greek hermeneutic thought develop. In uncovering the ancient discourse on dream interpretation, this study also outlines an early history of interpretation.
