Mythology Test 1 (unit 1)

Daphne's transformation illustrates the role of _____ in myth

etymology

Etiological myths tell stories that present the ____ of human practices or natural phenomena

causes or reasons

A scholar in Rome in the 1st century B.C.E, ___ elaborated three (3) views of ancient gods (the religious-civic gods; the theatrical-literary gods; the philosophical).

Varro

Who does NOT take the "ritualist" view of true myth?

Claude Levi-Strauss

___ thought that myths operate like social "charters," because they endorse or support a society's assumptions and social practices

Bronislav Malinowski

___ argued that true myths are "nature" tales--they are allegories about nature and natural phenomena.

Max Muller

___ thought the core of true myth engaged tellers and audience in the religious mystery of restoring the primal first moment of cosmic creation.

Mircea Eliade

___ thought that myths often expressed archetypes, major thematic pattern-symbols making up what he called the "collective unconscious."

Carl Jung

Anima/Animus; hieros gammos; axis mundi

These terms are best thought to name examples of ___.

archetypes

According to Aristotle, which is more concerned about portraying universal cultural truths that probably would/could influence our experience now?

myth-poetry

For Aristotle, ___ is more concerned with telling particulars--for example, what particular persons said and did, what particular things they did and said, and at what time they did them.

history

Which approach to myth is most interested in discovering the underlying binary opposites that shape a tale's characters, actions, and values?

structuralist approach

Who studied Russian folktales and identified in them 21 "motifemes" (sequentially ordered theme-units)?

Vladimir Propp

Who applied the motifeme approach to ancient Greek myth but argued that historical-social circumstance determined what elements appeared in different versions of a tale?

Walter Burkert

A ancient Greek writer from around 300 B.C.E., ___ rationalized classical myth by arguing that the gods were really men and women who wanted to be thought of and treated as gods and goddess.

Euhemerus

___ thought that Greek myths revealed much about the dynamics of human sexual libido and developed the Oedipus Complex about it based upon the Greek story.

Sigmund Freud

the name Uranus in Greek means

Heaven

according to Hesiod, what/who comes before all things?

Chaos

it is best to characterize Tartarus as ______

the hollow space below Earth associated with death

what divine power or god causes Earth to have sexual union with heaven?

Eros

Some ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the word "chaos" referred to the "gap" in the original substance and derived from a Greek verb (chaein) meaning "to gape open."

true

Some ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the word "chaos" referred to the utter confusion (or lack of difference) between the four ancient elements composing the world.

true

what goddess was born from the severed genitals of Heaven?

Aphrodite

which goddess was born from the "aphros" or foam of the sea waves?

Aphrodite

which gods best fit the role of Father Sky?

Uranus and Cronus

who is mother of the Titan generation of gods?

Ge or Gaia

who gave birth to "heaven"

Ge

who was most likely to be described as Kypris ("she of Cyprus")

Aphrodite

who was the mother of the first six Olympian gods?

Rhea

who swallowed his children?

Cronus

who, at the urging of his mother Ge, castrated his father?

Cronus

who was the son of Helios who drove the solar chariot so erratically that Zeus/Jupiter had to strike him with lightning?

Phaethon

who is the goddess representing "Dawn"?

Eos/Aurora

who were the young dancing warriors who shielded baby Zeus?

Kouretes/Corybantes

where was baby Zeus kept in hiding?

Crete

what nymph nurtured infant Zeus and was often represented as a she-goat?

Almathea

myth

-explains external things; a natural or cultural phenomenon

-techniques in myth: etiology and etymology

-etiology and greek word aition

-etymology - study of the origin of words is key subtype of etiology; Greek etumos means "true"

trends in mythology (i.e., the study of myth as a form of expression)

1) treating myth as primitive, early, not modern

2) treating myth as mistaken or false

3) contrasting "primitive" 'societies' "superstition" with modern "true" religion

4) the opposite of 3: ancients know true religion

myth explains nature

-one major trend has been to view "true" myth as offering explanation of natural phenomena

-among these scholars were Max Műller: myths offer allegories of natural events.

-but Euhemeros, ancient mythographer (ca. 316 BCE), allegorized the reverse:

"nature myths were created by great kings, who wanted to revered and feared as gods"

myth explains society: ritual

-the "ritualists" (J.G. Frazer, Jane Harrison, Robert Graves) hold that "true myth" always has at its core a ritual or set of rituals.

-these "true myths" are speech

accompanying actions of the ritual and

are a like of verbal trace of ritual.

-other myths are derivative from ritual

myths, said Robert Graves.

-but already Varro (as quoted in Augustine, City of God): the civic myths (ritual), poetic myth, philosophical myth

Max Muller

-myths offer allegories of natural events

who are the "ritualists"

J.G. Frazer

Jane Harrison

Robert Graves

J.G. Frazer's "Golden Bough"

linked myth with ritual of kingship and agricultural fertility

Robert Graves: ritualist view

-all "true myth" is the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed in public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, etc

-"true myth" differs from other types of myth

-he allows that myth varies by genres (modes) but can one ever untangle the "true" myth from genres of expression?

myths explain society

-social "charters": Bronislav Malinowski

Bronislav Malinowski

-an anthropologist among the Trobriand Islanders (off New Guinea)

-myths are related so social practices—everyday life

-a society has myth to confirm its institutions, customs, beliefs, etc.

-view is a sociological extension from the ritualists

charter

an agreement or contract

Mircea Eliade

-says "true myth conjures the original creative act of the gods, which conveys religious aura"

-wrote "the myth of the eternal retum"

Varro

-divides myth into 3 areas:

1) religious-civic myths

2) theatrical-literary myths

3) philosophical myth

religious-civic myths

explaining and encouraging belief in rituals in particular communities

theatrical-literary myths

myths as staged by playwrights or written in poetry-books

philosophical myth

interpretation of myth as allegory or metaphor for the structure of the cosmos

myth and the mind

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung

myth and Freud

-Freud's Oedipal incest complex has a masculine form. Male child's love of the mother

-Dreams are fulfillments of wishes

-To protect sleep and relieve anxiety, the mind goes through "dream-work" using "dream symbols":

1)mental condensation (abbreviation) of elements,

2)displacement of elements (different emphasis, allusion not direct representation)

3) "representation" (transmission via symbols, images)

myth and Jung

-developed the feminine version: "electra complex" meaning female child's love of the father

-"collective unconscious" and evolution of the unconscious

-personal unconscious vs. the collective

-myth contains master images or "archetypes": a dramatic abbreviation of the patterns involved in a whole story or situation: an inherited scheme of functioning

myth and Jung: archetypes

Anima/ animus

Old wise man

The great mother

Fear of snakes

Hieros gamos—sacred union of opposites

Axis mundi—center of the world

mythos

-an ancient Greek word meaning "anything delivered by word of mouth"

-other words built upon it: "mutheomai = to say or to speak", "mutheuo = to be spoken of", and "mytheuma = a telling or a story told"

Aristotle

-in his poetics, refers to myth as a "tale" but seems interested in plot structure

-"mythos" = applied to both traditional and new tales

-"mutheuma" = plot structure

-katharsis = cleansing of pity and fear

-distinguishes two kinds of truth: particular and universal

Claude Levi-Strauss

French philosopher and structural anthropologist, developed theory of binary opposites, said culture was a system of communication, interpreted human culture on linguistics, information theory, and cybernetics, wrote "Structural Anthropology", "Totemism", "The Raw and the Cooked", and "The Savage Mind"

Vladimir Propp

Developed the structural interpretation of myth in his study of Russian folktales; he saw a recurrent, unchanging, temporal pattern applicable to all Russian folktales. This pattern he broke down into 31 functions or units of action, which other scholars have termed motifemes

Walter Burkert

-a scholar of ancient religion

-has proposed a synthesis of structuralist theories and more traditional approaches.

-holds that structuralist approaches to Greek myth must take into account the cultural and historical dimensions in which the myths are told and retold.

-He developed four theses of the modified synthesis of the structural and historical approaches.

Joseph Campbell

wrote hero with a thousand faces

Homer

Iliad and Odyssey around 750 BCE

Iliad

-Heras seduction of zeus:

Hera lies to Aphrodite: Oceanus and his wife Tethys live around the world in surrounding stream

the magical fertility of Zeus and Hera's intercourse

-shield of achilles:

two cycling or circling bands: Oceanus (ocean) and Ouranos (Uranus; heaven)

two cities: peace and war

Hesiod

-wrote Theogony, and Works & Days

Theogony

-Hesiod

-epic poem

-emphasizes "birth of the gods" and the sacred fertility of Earth (Ge or Gaia) and Heaven (Uranus)

-Hesiod asks the Muses, daughters of Zeus and Memory, to help him remember the many gods and their names

Works and Days

-Hesiod

-five ages

-epic poem

-gives advice on work, agriculture, and ethics but it contains the tale of Pandora (the first woman)

cosmogony as cosmography

The ancient Greek tales of the "birth of the cosmos" describe the "process of ordering the world" or "producing the world order."

Ovid

-roman poet

-Metamorphoses (four ages: gold, silver, bronze, and iron)

-Fasti (Ovid talks with Janus)

-both books are a mix of gods and natural processes of 4 elements

Ovid's Metamorphoses

-narrator tells the creation story as an event external to self

Ovid's Fasti

-converses with the god Janus and elicits the tale of creation from the god himself

-cosmic division results from conflictive processes within Chaos - Janus doesn't impose it

Sophocles

-was one of the three great Greek tragedians

-of his eight plays (seven full, one fragmented) that remain today, his most famous is Oedipus the King (Oedipus Rex), which is known for its impressive construction and use of dramatic devices.

Aeschylus

-was a Greek dramatist

-the earliest of the city's great tragic poets

-as the predecessor of Sophocles and Euripides, he is the founder of Greek tragedy

Eros

-causes Gaia to desire Uranus and they mate and produce the Titans, Cyclopes, and Hecatonchires

-emerges from Chaos

Euripides

known for taking a new approach to traditional myths: he often changed elements of their stories or portrayed the more fallible, human sides of their heroes and gods

Aion

-a Hellenistic deity associated with time

-is thus a god of the ages, associated with mystery religions concerned with the afterlife, such as the mysteries of Cybele, Dionysus, Orpheus, and Mithras.

Aristophanes' Birds

-a comic version of Orphic beliefs

-the race of birds have their own cosmogony

-their ancestors, their gods, all have wings just as they do

-winged night lays a cosmic egg in darkness

-Eros the first born one hatches with wings

the world egg

represents the transition to cosmos or order from chaos

Uranus

-Father Sky

-

Hephaestus

-the metal, fire, and craftsman god

-urged by Zeus to create the first human female (all gods give her all the gifts of woman = Pandora)

Pandora

-the first woman

-Athena and other gods help to clothe her and create her by giving her seductive attributes, "all gifts"

-in Hesiod's, Works and Days, Hermes takes her to Epimetheus as bride-gift

-she had a pithos, a storage container as a dowry of other gifts

Ge or Gaia

-Mother Earth

-produces the "Gegeneis" (giants) meaning: the ones born from earth

-after Zeus drives out the Titians from the sky, she bore her youngest child Typhoeus

Typhoes

-arms were made for deeds of might, legs never wearied, and on his shoulders were 100 snake heads

-struck by Zeus lightning bolt

Pontus

-an ancient, pre-Olympian sea-god

-Gaia's son and has no father

-according to the Greek poet Hesiod, he was born without coupling, though according to Hyginus

the titans

-children of the mother earth (Ge or Gaia) and the father sky (Uranus; gaia's child)

-Cronus' other brothers and sisters

titans to watch out for

Oceanus

Hyperion

Iapetus

Rhea

Themis

Mnemosyne

Tethys

Cronus

Oceanus and Tethys

-sovereigns of the sea

-produce offspring which are the rivers inside the lands

-Oceanids "Oceanus": large groups of goddesses- sisters; typically named after their father or where they live

-Nereids (Nereus)

-Dryads = trees

-Oreads = mountains

Hyperion and Theia

-parents of Helios (sun god), Selene (moon goddess), and Eos (the dawn)

-they are sister and brother who mate to reproduce

Hyperion

-sun god (god above)

-husband of Theia

Theia

-sight and light

-produce the sun (Helios), the moon (Selene), and the dawn (Eos)

Hecatonchires

-the Hundred-Handers

-helped Zeus by driving the Titans down into Tartarus, womb of Mother Earth

-guard the Titans in Tartarus

Cronus

-fears loss of control; so he swallows his children

-his belly is compared to female womb

-attempt to control generation and generational succession

-Zeus' father

Rhea

-Mother of the Gods (of the Olympian gods who govern the final cosmic order)

-saved Zeus from being swallowed by his father

-also known as Cybele

Rhea and Cronus

-parents of the Olympians

Olympians

-the gods and goddesses are called who live on Mt. Olympus

-*first 6: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, Zeus*

Zeus

-king of the gods

-originally, god of the sky (rain, lightning) but then became the supreme deity with final authority

-often carries his shield, the AEGIS, which is an attribute to his favorite daughter Athena

-married his sister Hera

-brothers: Poseidon and Hades

-important sanctuary was at Olympia; his cult statue was made by Pheidias

-mated with Mnemosyne to produce the nine muses

Zeus' infancy on Crete

-nursing in Gaia's cave

-quick growth to strong youth

-figures/symbols associated with Zeus' infancy: nympgs, Almathea, cornu copaie, kouretes

children of Zeus and Hera

Eileithyia (goddess of childbirth)

Hebe (youthful bloom, cupbearer of the gods, becomes wife of Heracles)

Hephaestus

Ares (the virile and brutal god of war)

Hera

-one of the 6 olympians

-Zeus wife

Helios

-sun god

-father of Phaethon