Myths and Mythology

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Contents

The Major Texts and Writers

Homer 8th C BC. Author of the Iliad and the Odyssey although the stories had a long oral tradition. See also Homer's Odyssey

Hesiod 7th C BC wrote the Theogany dealing with the origins of the gods. Also wrote Works and Days and Catalogue of a Woman

Homeric Hymns . 6th C BC Epic-style poems honoring Greek deities

Pindar 5th C BC. Lyric poet

Herodotos Mid-5th C BC. The Father of History who wrote The Histories

Aiskylos or Aeschylus 4th C BC Athenian tragic dramatist. Primarily know for the trilogy The Oresteia

Sophokles 4th C BC Athenian tragic dramatist. Was writing at the same time as Aiskylos and best known for Oedipus Rex and also Antigone

Euripides 4th C BC Athenian tragic dramatist. The third member of the great Greek writers who wrote among others Orestes

Aristophanes 4th C BC Comic playwright who wrote the The Birds from which we get the saying living in Cloud Cuckoo Land


Plato 4th C BC Athenian philosopher who used myths to illustrate ideas


Kallimakhos 3rd C BC Learned scholar poet


Apollonios Rhodios 3rd Wrote definitive version of Jason and the Argonauts


Theokritos 3rd C Hellenistic poet


Virgil 1st C BC Roman Poet who wrote Aeneid


Ovid 1st C AD Roman poet who wrote Metamorphosis. Most influential author about myth on Western literature


Plutarch 1st C AD Wrote Parallel Lives and Greek biographer


Pausanias 2nd C AD Greek travel writer

Where do they come from?

Homer refers to Theban stories and predate the 8th C BC. Comparative lietrature suggests that Hindu and Greek poetry share similar motifs. On the other hand they can be contemporary to the period. Penelope's suitors want to hear the newesy song.

In Homer's day the Myths were sung by a bard but with literature came the fixing of tales in to a common narrative Such as Ovid's Metamorphosis.

We should distinguish them from folk tales and fairy tales. Folk tales can be set in any thime or place. Fairly tales are trated as fiction from the start and have no recognizable places or people. With myths they are very specific. e.g. Helen is carried off and the story involves Agamemnon and Menelaos. As for legends, they do not claim to be divinely inspired and comes from the word to be read while myths comes from spoken


Towards a Definition of Myths

A dictionary definition would define falsehood. They may not be true but that does not diminish their power and relevance. Infact myths are true for those who use it but in the modern world the word had some degree of ambivalent meaning.

In essence myths are traditional tales relevant to society and they are good way to think about something and understand the world. They are not considered scripture but helped to define human's relationship with gods. Greeks often behave like humans.

In the time of Homer myths were not necessarily thought of as untrue. In later centuries the nuance changed. Thucydides says thay may not be true but they have a serious historical narrative.

Myths can mean the stories themselves, the analysis of myths or a particualr myth and can be presented orally, written or depicted in art. The most recent scholarly analyses emphasizes myths as traditional tales that reference something of collective importance


So myths are there to entertain, instruct, persuade, provide examples and are seldon without a motive. Generally:

  • A Greek myths is a set of variants on the same story
  • Concerns the divine or supernatural
  • Indefinable by human chronology
  • traditional
  • Relevent to society
  • Retelling provides a new variant


Basic Aspects of Greek Myths

[1] Although Mythos means spoken we can say that they are of have become a tale, story or narative, which is different from an historical tale logos. The Myths are not empiracally true but they contain psychological truths.

Myths have connections with all aspects of human lifeand experience. They make emotional valuations, and concern themselves with moral physical or Ontological issues. They may use symbols and allegories, images etc. They bare entitled to tell lies without abdicating truth. "We know enough to make up lies which are convincing, but we also have the skill, when we will, to speak the truth." (The Muses to Hesiod. Hesiod, Theogony 25

The main division of Myths include the Divine. e.g. The castration of Uranus in mistly imaginary places like Tartarus or Mount Olympus or Heroic Myths, which tale place is geographical places like Rhodes. Heros can be kings, warriors but also pirates and robbers

The foundation of the myths lies in divine presence, and the Heroic myths are linked to it through three devices:

  • divine intervention in human affairs
  • any kind of reference to the gods or to someone related to them
  • genealogy establishing descent from the gods

the supernatural should be distinguished from the divine. Supernatural powers, however extraordinary, are always subject to the absolute power of being of the divinity, and are reserved in the myths for cosmic challengers, heroes or heroines, even if the gods may enjoy, in addition to their exclusive privilege, whatever other supernatural capacities they wish to enjoy.

Myths are not to be believed or disbelieved. Belief is the realm of religion and superstition while disbelief belongs to the profane view. All myths are called aetiological concerned with the causes and origin of things. Whereas legend concerns what appears to be historical facts and folk tales have no time, location or recognizable individuals. Although they an mix and one mans myth is another man's legend.

Variation of myths are seen as beneficial as they invite understanding at different levels or be used for different intentions. Myths that do not include divine presence can be regarded as a lesser myth.

Conclusions

Discussions of the various artworks are developing into something more than just speculation about the artifacts/scenes themselves, be these giants, death masks, drinking vessels or whatever: as we’ll see, the context of myth telling/depiction is crucial. There are so many great issues - men and women in myth; the divide between modern & ancient; ideas like Ephrem’s ‘history is the creative myth of the historian’, or the ‘history is written by the victors’ idea (and if so, who writes myth? – and is ‘conspiracy theory written by the losers’?); the debate between ‘a myth can't be true or probable’ and ‘a myth had its base in something that had happened or had existed’; the involvement of gods; the suggestion that myth could be ‘a powerful story that made absolute sense in story-telling terms’ and that ‘myths are a process not a thing’

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