The Myth of the Eternal Return: Cosmos and History

By Mircea Eliade

This founding work of the history of religions, first published in English in 1954, secured the North American reputation of the Romanian émigré-scholar Mircea Eliade (1907-1986). Making reference to an astonishing number of cultures and drawing on scholarship published in no less than half a dozen European languages, Eliade's The Myth of the Eternal Return makes both intelligible and compelling the religious expressions and activities of a wide variety of archaic and "primitive" religious cultures. While acknowledging that a return to the "archaic" is no longer possible, Eliade passionately insists on the value of understanding this view in order to enrich our contemporary imagination of what it is to be human. Jonathan Z. Smith's new introduction provides the contextual background to the book and presents a critical outline of Eliade's argument in a way that encourages readers to engage in an informed conversation with this classic text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781400845668

Mircea Eliade

Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) was a Romanian-born historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, professor at the University of Chicago, and one of the pre-eminent interpreters of world religion of the 20th century. Eliade was an intensely prolific author of fiction and non-fiction alike, publishing over 1,300 pieces over 60 years, including the novels Maitreyi (or Bengal Nights), Noaptea de Sânziene (The Forbidden Forest), Isabel și apele diavolului (Isabel and the Devil's Waters) and Romanul Adolescentului Miop (Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent), and the novellas Domnișoara Christina (Miss Christina) and Tinerețe fără tinerețe (Youth Without Youth), which was made into a feature film by Frances Ford Coppola in 2007, starring Tim Roth.