Invented History, Fabricated Power

Barry Wood

Description

An examination of more than twenty cultures and how kings, empires, religions and societies have enhanced their authority

Typically we think of power as economic, political, or military, but fictional narratives attached to kings, empires, religious founders, and societies have been used to create and enhance power and authority since the beginning of civilization. Invented History, Fabricated Power presents evidence from cultures ancient and modern, Eastern and Western, to demonstrate that narrative extends well beyond literary works (plays, poems, epics, novels) where it is usually studied by literary specialists. At the same time, there is much to be learned about the power of narrative from literary analyses which are herein undertaken for a number of lesser known works: Ramayana, Mahabharata, Shahnameh, Sejarah Melayu, Negarakertagama and Kebra Nagast. As an imaginative endowment of humans, however, “narrative knowing” is a cognitive universal—the primary way we organize, remember, and communicate our experience and knowledge. It is, thus, a faculty susceptible to narratives that construct and enhance power for persons, kings, empires, societies, religions, and cultures. 

The result of the book is a survey of narrative power in familiar Western cultures (Greek, Roman, Frankish, British), less familiar Asian cultures (Chinese, Indian, Japanese), and a number of lesser known cultures typically bypassed by historians (Persian, Ethiopian, Iroquois, Malaysian, Aztec). It also seems important to take a hard look at the Roman Church where a series of forgeries established papal power that persisted long after the forgeries were exposed. It also seems important to recognize that the Marxist economic analysis included an unlikely futuristic scenario that was corrupted by revolution and eventually failed. The astonishing Nazi ideology promulgated by Adolf Hitler was founded on fictional analyses of both “Aryans” and Jews but nevertheless inspired “willing executioners” to carry through the “final solution” of the Holocaust. 

Eventually we consider our own consuming ideology, most notably the idealistic narrative of liberal democracy now available to only a fraction of the world population. We have come to recognize it is propped up by a desire for control, comfort, and consumption—a way of life that now endangers human survival as environmental degradation, resource depletion, earth-system overshoot, and global warming are undercutting its narrative assumptions.

Introduction; Prologue: Prehistoric Spirits and Personal Power; Part One, Divine Kings, Devarajas, and Sons of Heaven; 1, Divine kingship in Mesopotamia; 2, Pharaohs among the Indestructibles; 3, Kingship among the Hebrews; 4, The Deification of Roman Emperors; 5, The Deva-rajas of India and Southeast Asia; 6, The Chinese Mandate from Heaven; 7, The Japanese Imperial Cult; Part Two, Kings and Empires Before the Common Era (BCE); 8, The Legendary Prehistory of the Sumerians; 9, Legendary Kings and Empires of Pre-Classical Greece; 10, Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel; 11, Legendary Kings and Empires of India; 12, The Aeneid and the Legendary Founding of Rome; Part Three, Narratives of Spiritual Founders; 13, Moses: Lawgiver and Founder of Israel; 14, Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas; 15, The Teacher of Righteousness and Savior Narratives; 16, Muhammad, the Qur’an, and Islamic Legends; 17, The Virgin Mary through the Centuries; 18, Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe; Part Four, Kings and Empires in the Common Era (CE); 19, Narrative Forgeries of the Holy Roman Empire; 20, Shahnameh: The Epic of Kings and Alexander the Great; 21, Charlemagne: Ancestral and Campaign Fictions; 22, The Fictional Kingdom of King Arthur; 23, Kebra Negast: Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant; 24, Elizabeth I: Narratives of the Virgin Queen; Part Five, Social and Political Order since 1450; 25, Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire; 26, Discovery: The European Narrative: of Power; 27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois Federation; 28, The New England Canaan of the Puritans; 39, Marx, Capitalism, and the Classless Society; 30, Adolf Hitler’s Narratives of Aryans and Jews; Epilogue: The Endangered Narrative of Liberal Democracy; Bibliography of Works Cited; Index.

Sujets

• Jewish
• Jews
• JewishGen
• History of architecture
• General officer
• Literary criticism
• General
• History
• Architecture
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 16 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781785274770
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Invented History, Fabricated Power
ALSO BY BARRY WOOD

Malcolm Lowry: The Writer and His Critics
The Only Freedom
The Magnificent Frolic
Invented History, Fabricated Power
The Narrative Shaping of Civilization and Culture
Barry Wood
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2020
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
Copyright © Barry Wood 2020
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020940782
ISBN-13: 978-1-78527-475-6 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78527-475-9 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
For
Colin Wood
and
Michael Wood
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
About the Cover
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Prologue: The Prehistory of Power: Souls Spirits, Deities
Part One Kings and Emperors
1 Divine Kingship in Mesopotamia
2 Pharaohs among the Indestructibles
3 Kingship among the Hebrews
4 The Deification of Roman Emperors
5 The Deva-Rajas in India and Southeast Asia
6 The Chinese Mandate from Heaven
7 The Japanese Imperial Cult
Part Two Empires before the Common Era
8 The Legendary Empire of the Sumerians
9 Legendary Empires of Preclassical Greece
10 Patriarchs, Exodus, and the Epic of Israel
11 Legendary Empires of Ancient India
12 The Legendary Founding of Rome
Part Three Founders
13 Moses: The Israelite Lawgiver
14 Buddha and Legends of Previous Buddhas
15 The Savior Narratives
16 Muhammad, the Qur’an , and Islam
17 The Virgin Mary through the Centuries
18 Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe
Part Four Empires of the Common Era
19 Narrative Inventions of the Holy Roman Empire
20 The Epic of Kings, Alexander the Great, and the Malacca Sultinate
21 The Franks, Charlemagne, and the Chansons de Geste
22 The Legendary Kingdom of King Arthur
23 Ethiopian Kings and the Ark of the Covenant
24 Narratives of the Virgin Queen
Part Five Ideologies
25 Discovery: The European Narrative of Power
26 Epics of the Portuguese Seaborne Empire
27 Dekanawida and the Iroquois League
28 The New England Canaan of the Puritans
29 The Marxist Classless Society
30 Adolph Hitler: Narratives of Aryans and Jews
Epilogue: A Clash of Narratives
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are all a synthesis of many teachers but a few stand out as inescapable influences. As an undergraduate I had the pleasure of studying under Northrop Frye at the University of Toronto, one of the great scholars of our time who subsequently became a personal friend and occasional correspondent. His anatomical structuring of literature established a unique ideal: one may examine one literary work after another, which is what we do at the beginning of literary study, but there are patterns that emerge as we explore across whole genres and cultures from the library of global literature. Frye’s compelling image suggests that literature, history, and culture may be imagined synchronically as spread out across an interactive conceptual space. As his many books demonstrate, literature provides words of power that animate history, culture, and civilization. Second to Frye was his talented student, the Canadian poet Jay McPherson. Half a century after I took her courses, she agreed to read an earlier version of this book. Months later I received the carefully edited manuscript from her niece. Jay had worked on it right up until she passed away, leaving it for her niece to return. Thanks are due to Emeritus Professor Roberta Weldon who pointed to three sections of this earlier effort and said this was where she thought my best argument lay. A decade later, this book is the result.
Several chapters of this work are based on research conducted and resources collected in Southeast Asia. I would like to thank the University of Houston, the Texas International Education Consortium (TIEC), and the State University of New York (SUNY) Buffalo in conjunction with Institut Teknologi Mara (ITM) for a four-year teaching residency in Malaysia (1987–1991) that led to opportunities, discoveries, and resources not available in the United States. This included exploration of monuments, temples, and ruins from several ancient cultures. Librarians at the University of Malaya, National University of Singapore, and Gadja Mada University, Indonesia, were invariably helpful. I would like to thank the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS), University of Houston, for a Book Completion Grant supporting publication; anonymous readers who provided useful suggestions; and my editor Megan Greiving at Anthem for guiding this book through the passages and hallways of academic publication. Finally, my wife Vickie is deserving of heartfelt praise for encouraging and supporting this project at every step of the way.
ABOUT THE COVER

Victory Stele c. 2230 BCE: Naram Sin, the most well-known divine king of the Sumerians, climbs toward the sky stepping on fallen warriors as he approaches Shamash, the Sun god. Location: The Louvre. Dima Moroz / Shutterstock.com

The Trojan Horse: According to Homer and Virgil, the wooden horse left behind by the Greeks was hauled into the city by the Trojans. At night, Greek warriors hidden inside emerged to burn Troy and win the ten-year war. Mati Nitibhon / Shutterstock.com

Our Lady of Guadalupe: According to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego on the sacred hill of the Aztec fertility goddess. Her miracle of the flowers persuaded the Catholic priest to build a church at this site. EmanArt92 / Shutterstock.com

The Sword in the Stone: The Sword in the Stone was impossible to remove until the legendary Arthur performed the miracle and thus established his right to become the king of England. Fer Gregory / Shutterstock.com

Meditating Buddha: The largest Buddhist stupa in the world, Borobudur, is located in Central Java. Seventy-two stone Buddhas on the upper platform sit within perforated bell-shaped stone stupas. The ninth-century builders left one Buddha exposed to view. R. M. Nunes / Shutterstock.com

Rama and Sita: This Balinese wood carving depicts King Rama and his queen, hero and heroine of the Indian Ramayana epic, which continues to animate Indian literature, art, dance, and drama across South and Southeast Asia. Dmitry Rukhlenko / Shutterstock.com

Moses and the Tablets: In the biblical Book of Exodus, Moses, leader of the Israelites, comes down from Mount Sinai with the stone tablets that Yahweh has engraved with the Ten Commandments. Artist: Gustave Dore. ruskpp / Shutterstock.com

Adolf Hitler : Chancellor of the Third Reich from 1933 until 1945, Hitler championed the superiority of the Aryan people that justified invasions all across Europe and the Final Solution: the death camps and the execution of six million Jews. FotograFFF / Shutterstock.com
ABBREVIATIONS
Quotations from works traditionally divided into books, scenes, chapters, verses, and lines are identified with the following abbreviations. Editions are identified in the reference list:
AEN Aeneid ANAL Analects BDCA Buddha-Carita CMAL Conquest of Malacca GILG Epic of Gilgamesh ILAD Iliad KORA Koran (Qur’an) LAVS Lalitavistara LUSD Lusiads MAHA Mahabharata META Metamorphoses NJB New Jerusalem Bible ODYS Odyssey RAMA Ramayana RIGV Rig Veda SORL Song of Roland UPAN Upanishads
Introduction
We typically think of power as economic, military, or political. In this war-torn millennium, stealth aircraft and smart bombs come to mind. In past cultures, we think of invaders on horseback or sailing ships armed with cannons. We rarely think of power as an intangible invention of leaders, elites, artists, sculptors, or storytellers in imperial courts. But from the dawn of civilization, kings, empires, and societies have developed self-aggrandizing narratives in inscriptions, relief art, literary works, and political tracts. Fictional History, Fabricated Power traces narratives of power from prominent cultures across the globe. The continental divide of this study is the distinction between story and fact, the latter becoming the primary unit of knowledge with the rise of empirical science. The motivation was the need to establish a person, society, culture, or ideology as separate and superior through imaginative means. Before the Renaissance, meaning was stored and communicated through narrative, which Hayden White (1989, 1) described as a “metacode” understandable to all members of a culture. More broadly, Roland Barthes (1977, 79) described narrative as “international, transhistorical, transcultural,” a “human universal” according to Donald Brown ( 1991 ),