Le voyage d’Europe au fil des siècles / Europa’s Journey through the Ages

The myth of Europa, first attested in the eighth century bce in Homeric Poems and Hesiod’s Theogony, shapes new visions, figures and images in European literary productions as well as in artistic circles from Graeco-Roman antiquity to the present day. It is an enigmatic journey whose true beginnings cannot be determined and whose end is probably still far off. The centre of attention in this volume is Europa, Phoenician princess, and not Europe, geopolitical idea. With a multidisciplinary and diachronic view, this book explores different facets of the reception of the myth. The contributors offer reflections on the characterization of the mythical figure of Europa, for the archaic and classical periods, and on the reworking of the myth in the Hellenistic and humanistic period. The investigation extends to the study of the persistence of the myth of Europa in the art and literature of modern and contemporary times.