The lion as iconography, myth, hierarchy and literary text

Abstract

In the religious iconographies, literary structures and conceptual hierarchies the lion occupies a predominant place in the world since the sixth century BCE.Aware of the importance of the lion in imagining knowledge, power and hegemonic spaces, ancient Indian, Athenian, Egyptian and Greek mythologies on the one hand, and the Bible, Renaissance paintings and Shakespearean texts on the other hand, dexterously employed representations of the lion to elucidate significant aspects of divine and human behavior.Ancient mythologies have attributed almost divine power to the lion, but occasionally its power could be vanquished by a superior strategy, heroic force or divine intervention.In the classical Greek and Indian traditions the lion stood for indomitable power that could be used either to redeem the self or purify society, but this image of the lion has expanded to include other representations.Already in the Bible the lion has allegedly begun to represent the wrathful justice of God.One of the first labors of Hercules in the Greek tradition is to smother the life of the invincible Nemean lion The Lion as Iconography, Myth, Hierarchy and Literary

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