La démesure à l’œuvre dans les mythes de fléaux et de fin du monde

• Main Author: Christine Dumas-Reungoat
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2006-12-01
• Series: Kentron
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/kentron/1768

Using a corpus of texts about scourges (Hesiod, The Cypria, Lucian, Nonnos and Sibylline Oracles) as well as passages from Mesopotamian and biblical literature (Genesis), the author establishes the following point: immoderation is an intrinsic part of every scourge. Its causes and effects are impregnated with excess and authors who evoke scourges inevitably use a profusion of stylistic devices inherent to the narration of disorders caused by cataclysms. Man’s hubris can give rise to a scourge without his ever being aware of his responsibility in the momentary destruction of the universe. Moreover, in myths about scourges, the excessive nature of the divine deed which penalizes human immoderation is in fact in keeping with a god who wishes, by his action, to narrowly define the status of human creatures. The excessive nature of scourges is indispensable if the author wishes to convey the omnipotence of gods or of God, whether the aim of the myth is to narrate how man has become estranged from his quasi-divine status to enter the historical era of human limitation, or to announce how the historical era will give way to an era of eternal beatitude with God Almighty.