Based on a dual iconographic and textual approach—with over a thousand works and nearly three hundred Latin and Greek texts forming its foundation—this book situates the ancient and medieval Sirens within a global historical context for the first time. This perspective, which also includes an anthropological approach, allows us to grasp this archetypal figure in its profound unity while accounting for the paradoxical forms it has assumed. But beyond the history of the myth and its variants, the magico-religious beliefs associated with it, and the philosophical and moral interpretations it has inspired, this study is particularly original in its exploration of the transition from pagan Antiquity to the Christian Western Middle Ages through a symbolic image that emerges as a particularly illuminating lens through which to view mentalities. - [Abstract]

Language: French