I bought the Dutch translations of these books from the 1960’ies from one bookshop. The books appear to go together. Maybe I had too high hopes about these two books. I expected to get books with comparisons and explanations of symbols and symbology. In a way both books speak about these subjects, but not entirely the way I hoped. “The Myth…” speaks about archetypes in the Jungian sence and how these archetypes shaped mythology, religion and folklore. Eliade speaks about the repetition and periodicity of time and nature and how this led to anual feasts. Also a part is devoted to fate/karma. Is is an interesting little book, but there is a bit too much written about “primitive” African, South-American and far Eastern tribes while I hoped more Indo-European comparisons of myths and symbolism.
“Images And Symbols” partly covers the same ground as the other book, but is more focused on images and symbols. Again more in the sense of mythology, archetypes, the symbol of the centre (also in the other book), repetative time, etc. Nice is the part about the “god who binds” and the symbols of knots in different cultures. A long part is about shells for fertility and the last part is about water (floods, baptism, etc.). Again a nice book, but not exactly what I hoped for.
(7/1/04)
Read quotes of Eliade here.