Bernard Sergent (; born 23 February 1946) is a French ancient historian and comparative mythologist. He is researcher of the CNRS and president of the Société de mythologie française.

Publications

He has written a seminal work on

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

entitled ''Homosexuality in Greek Myth'', translated into English two years later by Beacon Press. In 1986, he followed up with a study covering early

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

, under the title of ''L'homosexualité initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne'' (Payot 1986), which has yet to be translated into English. The two studies have been published together, with a postface, as ''Homosexualité et initiation chez les peuples indo-européens''. In ''Genèse de L'Inde'', he attacks the recent anti-invasionist reconstructions of early

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

n history. Instead he defends the traditional hypothesis that the Indo-Aryans came into India in the 2nd millennium BC. According to Sergent, the

Dravidian languages The Dravidian languages are a language family, family of languages spoken by 250 million people, primarily in South India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan, with pockets elsewhere in South Asia. The most commonly spoken Dravidian l ...

originated in Africa before reaching South Asia. The book ''Les Indo-Européens - Histoire, langues, mythes'' is a general introduction to the Indo-European language family. Sergent associates the Indo-European language family with certain archaeological cultures in Southern Russian Steppes or Deshti Kipchak, and he reconstructs an Indo-European religion (relying on the method of Georges Dumézil). In the monograph, ''Les trois fonctions indo-européennes en Grèce ancienne'', vol. 1: ''De Mycènes aux Tragique'', Sergent examines the employment of the Dumézilian tripartite system in Greek epic, lyric and dramatic poetry. In a second volume, which has not been published yet, he will continue this examination with Greek

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

religion Religion is a range of social system, social-cultural systems, including designated religious behaviour, behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, religious text, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics in religion, ethics, or ...

. His recent work, ''Celtes et Grecs'', is dedicated to comparative Greek and

Celtic mythology Celtic mythology is the body of myths belonging to the Celtic peoples.Cunliffe, Barry, (1997) ''The Ancient Celts''. Oxford, Oxford University Press , pp. 183 (religion), 202, 204–8. Like other Iron Age Europeans, Celtic peoples followed ...

. In volume 1, ''Le livre de héros'' (Payot 1999 ), the Irish hero Cuchulainn is compared with the Greek heroes Achilleus, Bellerophon and Melanthius and the Irish epic Táin Bó Cúailnge with the Greek

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

, which, according to Sergent, presuppose an Indo-European "pre-Iliad". In volume 2, ''Le livre des dieux'', Sergent argues that the Celtic and Greek pantheons derive from a common Indo-European inheritance.

Works

* ''L'homosexualité initiatique dans l'Europe ancienne'', Payot 1986 * ''Les Indo-Européens'' Payot, 1995 * ''Genèse de l'Inde'' (Genesis of India), Payot, Paris 1997 * ''De Mycènes aux Tragique'', Économica 1998 * ''Celtes et Grecs'', Payot, 1999 * ''La guerre à la culture: aspects des attaques contre l'intelligence dans la période jospino-raffininesque'', L'Harmattan, 2005, * ''Les Dragons. Mythes, rites et légendes'', 2018, Fouesnant-Embanner, 2018

Books with English translations

* ''Homosexuality in Greek Myth,'' tr. Arthur Goldhammer, pref. Georges Dumezil. Beacon Press, Boston, 1986. *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sergent, Bernard 1946 births Living people 20th-century French historians 21st-century French historians French archaeologists Indo-Europeanists Scholars of Greek mythology and religion Comparative mythologists French male writers Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature)