The term "goddess" has also been adapted to poetic and secular use as a complimentary description of a non-mythological woman.

[14] The OED notes 1579 as the date of the earliest attestation of such figurative use, in Lauretta the diuine Petrarches Goddesse. Shakespeare had several of his male characters address female characters as goddesses, including Demetrius to Helena in A Midsummer Night's Dream ("O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!"), Berowne to Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost ("A woman I forswore; but I will prove, Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee"), and Bertram to Diana in All's Well That Ends Well. Pisanio also compares Imogen to a goddess to describe her composure under duress in Cymbeline.

See also[edit]

Anima (Jung) Gender of God Gingira Goddess movement Mother goddess Heavenly Mother Sophia Ochre Tree deity Venus figurines Matriarchy The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory

Notes[edit]
1. 2. 3. 4. Jump up ^ The Encyclopedia of World Religions - Page 181 Jump up ^ Introduction to pagan studies - Page 222, 2007 Jump up ^ Barnhart (1995:323). Jump up ^ first broadcast on PBS in 1988 as a documentary, The Power of Myth was also released in the same year as a book created under the direction of the late Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Jump up ^ Chapter 6, "The Gift of the Goddess" and Episode 5, "Love and the Goddess" [1] Jump up ^ p. 165, 1988, first edition Jump up ^ pp.1667, (1988, first edition) Jump up ^ p. 176, 1988, first edition Jump up ^ Mbiti, J.S., Introduction to African Religion, Oxford, 1975, p. 53. Jump up ^ Jung Chang, Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, New York: Touchstone, 2003, reprint, GlobalFlair, 1991, p. 429. Retrieved 2 Nov 2009 Jump up ^ Samael & Lilith Jump up ^ Tree of souls: the mythology of Judaism, By Howard Schwartz, page 218 Jump up ^ Bhme, Jacob; William Law, trans. (1622 (1764)). The Way to Christ. Pater-noster Row, London: M. Richardson. Jump up ^ OED: "Applied to a woman. one's goddess: the woman whom one worships or devotedly admires."

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14.

References[edit]

Dexter, Miriam Robbins, and Victor Mair (2010). Sacred Display: Divine and Magical Female Figures of Eurasia. Cambria Press. Barnhart, Robert K (1995). The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: the Origins of American English Words. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-270084-7 Gorshunova . Olga V.(2008), Svjashennye derevja Khodzhi Barora, ( Sacred Trees of Khodzhi Baror: Phytolatry and the Cult of Female Deity in Central Asia) in Etnoragraficheskoe Obozrenie, n 1, pp. 7182. ISSN 0869-5415. (Russian). [show]

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