Baylor CLA MYTH 3380 Dr. Burris Final Exam

City Dionysia

a festival dedicated to the wine god, Dionysus, in Athens... there is a tragedy contest, 3 playwrights with 3 tragedies each, festival takes place in the springtime, government religion

Dionysus

wine god, adult, seen with full beard, accompanied by female worshippers known as maenads, son of Zeus, mother is Semelē

Maenad

"crazy lady", frenzied followers caught up in Dionysus worship because he is the god of wine, but also drunkenness/wildness, hair down, dancing, holding snakes, wear animal skin, rip apart animals

Thyrsos

a staff made of a fennel-stalk with a cluster of ivy-leaves (or a pinecone) on the end, ivy is sacred to Dionysus

satyr

associated with the worship of Dionysus, male, pointy ears, snubby nose, has a fox tail, naked -> chasing maenads, who beat them with their thyrses, since they try to have relations with them

Sparagmos

ritual tearing apart of an animal associated with dionysus worship

erinys

a fury

Apollo

who claims mothers arent the real parents of their children

females are represented by

old gods, chthonian, oikos

males are represented by

young gods, olympian, polis

Eteocles

kleos for a year

Polyneices

much struggling

Ode to Man (Antigone)

our intellectual capacity lets us run the show. contemplates accomplishments of humanity;

Elpis

The Greek word for 'expectation.' when it goes wrong.

tolme

daring, ambition; drive to make bold decisions.

Atē

"blindness", "ruin"; dooms you to think to make bad decisions.

Seven Against Thebes

(Aeschylus) This early Greek tragedy tells the story of Oedipus's two sons, Polyneices and Eteocles, who initially agreed to rule Thebes together before Eteocles seized the kingship for himself. Eteocles selects the warrior who will face that attacker. When the seventh attacker is revealed to be Polyneices it is announced that the brothers have slain each other. 7 generals attack 7 gates.

anangke

Necessity; out of your control; ex: when oedipus tried to outrun the prophecy but he could not.

epicurus

Greek philosopher who believed that the world is a random combination of atoms and that pleasure is the highest good; gods are distant.

apotheosis

process of becoming a god/divine

Cecrops

First King of Athens; snake guy

alcmena, amphitryon,

Who is alcemna, who is her husband?

heracles acomplishments

linus and the lyre; killed lion of cithaeron for thespius, king thespius' hospitality (times50) when heracles makes love with all 50 of his daughters, and heralds of erginus.

Megara

Heracles' first wife and sister of haemon

eurystheus

who is heracles cousin

who were Deianira and Nessus

heracles wanted to marry deianira but nessus, evil centaur, tries to kidnap her; heracles shoots his poisonous arrows at him; but nessus tells deianira that his blood is special, and that if she takes his shirt, it will help heracles to fall back in love with her; one day, heracles puts it on but then realizes it and tries to kill himself, but only the human part is killed and his god form is taken up to olympus by Athena.

goddess of youth, marries Heracles

who is hebe

six labors of theseus

- Theseus and Periphetes: the club bearer

- Theseus and Sinis (Pithocampes): the pine bearer (flings a man into the water)

- Theseus and Monster sow sent by witch Phaea, Theseus kills it

- Theseus and Sciron: the foot washing guy (wait or force people to wash their feet, would rob and then kick them into the water) Theseus kills him he when makes Sciron wash his feet

- Theseus and Cercyon: the wrestler- giant who always would challenge people to wrestling competitions, rob and kill them. Theseus used agility and skill to win

- Theseus and Procrustes: The psycho who would invite people into his home, offered them a bed which was too small, and then cut their limbs off to make them fit (Theseus cuts his limbs off)

Semelē

mother of Dionysus, human woman, daughter of King of Thebes (princess), sleeps with Zeus, Hera finds out and punishes her: she becomes an old lady, becomes servant for Semelē, urges her to ask Zeus to make love to her the way he does with Hera, Semelē is zapped by a lightning bolt, she dies, pregnant Dionysus, Zeus takes him out and puts baby Dionysus in his thigh until he's ready to be birthed.

Orchestra

"dancing place", round area in the middle

Theatron

"seeing place" or "viewing device", made from pre-existing slope; where ppl sit to watch the play

Skenē

literally "tent"; the stage building in Greek theatre that stood behind the orchestra and that usually represented a palace, temple, or house in Greek tragedy; front of it was painted as a backdrop; it was also used for costume changes, the storage of props and scenery, etc.

chorus

12-15 young males; most lines, reflect playwrights ideas.

Thespis

first actor to step away from the chorus, 500 BC

Hypokritēs

actor, responds to chorus, only one actor, increases 3 actors maximum... if there are multiple roles, the actors simple change costumes to accommodate.

Choregos

"chorus leader", guy who pays for chorus

Didaskalos

"teacher", in ancient Greece, a playwright who staged the plays he wrote, instructing the performers and advising the designers and technicians, comes up with melodies and dance moves

Prologue

introductory remarks in a speech, play or literary work, introductory action...for example: The Watchman in the play Agamemnon is speaking, instructing audience how to feel, building up excitement for what is to come, doesn't make another appearance

Parados

entrance of the chorus from one of the sides, "side journey"

episode

when one or more actors enters and interacts with one another and/or the chorus (epi = upon, is = into, ode = path/way)

Stasimon

standing song (they're moving, just not leaving), no actors, just chorus...the Greek term for ode; takes place between dramatic episodes, allowing the chorus to reflect on the action and dialogue that has preceded

Exodus

"exit path", the way out, concluding a play

pathei mathos

knowledge through suffering; see line 178-179 in Agamemnon in hymn to Zeus, we learn through suffering (pathei = by means of suffering, mathos = learning); ex: when theseus does not take time to hear his son's case and jumps to believing a false accusation, leading to his son's death; and when creon chose polis, or politics, rather than family which led to the death of his loved ones.

Stichomythia

stick talk, rapid alternating single lines spoken by two characters, when dialogue between two characters are one lined dialogues... example: page 63 in Agamemnon (sticho = stick, mythia = talk)

Erinys

a form of justice, lives underground, must be sent be a dead person to torment a living person; aka Furies, were female chthonic deities of vengeance, sometimes referred to as "infernal goddesses"

miasma

what cannot be washed off; stained; unpure; blood on one's hands after murdering a family member; not allowed to do any sacrifices, not allowed to enter in a temenos, can't go in anyone's house; how do you know if you're being pursued by an the furies: ulcerous, scratchy skin, leprous; ex: when orestes murdered his own mother, he was unclean and the furies sought after him.

Aeropagus

hill in athens, a body count within judicial system

Strophe

"to turn"; for the chorus, it's like dancing 9 lines in this direction, and then you're to turn the opposite way for the following 9 lines (pg. 114 of Agamemnon)

Antistrophe

"counter turn"; the second section of an ancient Greek choral ode (strophe and antistrophe = balanced stanzas that form a pair)

Semnai Theai

"Reverend goddesses", respected; there is a shrine found on the side of the Acropolis. Eumenides = a giant aetiology for the reverend goddesses?, new timai for furies assigned to these goddesses!

triology

3 plays telling one long story written by one playwright and presented in one day at the Athenian Tragic Festival

Xenophanes

570-480 BC, philosopher that liked theology, "it's a waste of time" to tell the tale of Titans and giants... No good to be got from such subjects. Why? because the gods are depicted as immoral.

"There is one immoveable god, without toil he shakes all things with the thought of his mind"

"Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods everything that is a shame and reproached by men," and we ascribe to the gods our own features

6th century B.C. Greek thinker who cited the amorality and anthropomorphism of Greek Gods as evidence against their existence

Herodotus

484-425 BC, the ancient Greek known as the father of history*, born after Persian wars/invasions, Io myth explained (greek princess abducted by Phoenicians, brought to Egypt, then greeks retaliated by abducting Europa)

Thucydides

460-425 BC, fact checker of Greek myth, but still believes there is some validity in myths, does math based on Homeric Hymns, does "Homeric math"

Euhemerus

Late 4th-early 3rd century BC [MOST FAMOUS]

-myths arise form historical fact/human actions in the past

- historical fact -> (exaggerated) myth

- Fantasy prose work: "Sacred History"

-claims to have been transported by the gods to the island "Panchaia"; it had tombstones for all of the Greek gods, ancient perception of Zeus as a god is a distortion of reality. After powerful man died, people began to refer to him as a god...says evidence of this is Alexander the Great's death, as he is later worshipped as a god (term: euhemerism: the theory of the Greek writer Euhemerus that the Greek gods were created from real stories about humans and historical events)

myths are based on fame, believes gods were originally famous human beings that became deified through stories and then became gods

Epicurus

342-271 BC

-gods are distant and not concerned with human affairs

-atomic theory and related psychological theory

-Greek philosopher who believed that the world is a random combination of atoms and that pleasure is the highest good

-questions morality of God (either God wishes to remove evils and can't, or he can and is unwilling, or he has neither, or he has both), known as "Epicurus' Riddle"

Jane Harrison (1850-1928)

-one of the very first women to teach at Cambridge, wrote the book "Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion" in 1903

-(pre-existing) fertility ritual -> (rationalizing) myth

- opposite of Euhemerus

- much like Tertullian

Cambridge School of thought

Jane Harrison was influential here, all scholars who admired and took after her called themselves this, wrote books that followed her footsteps

James Frazer

(1854-1941) The Golden Bough** (1890), refers to Aeneas in Aeneid written by Virgil; his main hypothesis: all human religion comes from an earlier fertility magic belief

- fertility magic, human sacrifice -> various religions and their mythologies -> scientific knowledge

- believed in the term DYING GOD (see next card)

Dying God

-god of the earth comes to live; dies, comes to life; dies... how do we assure this keeps happening-> find a human to do the same!!

- god that comes to life in spring and is dead in the winter; related to James Frazer's theory

Friedrich Nietzsche

(1844-1900) divides life into two categories:

- Apolline: punisher of sin, myths about Apollo getting angry at rule breakers... need rules!

-Dionysian: all for breaking the rules, doing things one wouldn't normally do

much like lent vs. carnival

much like order vs. chaos

Athenian tragedy = question morality

Athens = city that requires rules to be followed (Apolline)...except for tragedy festival that allows humans to experience rules being broken (Dionysian).

Sigmund Freud

"my conscious self is not fully aware of my psychology"

- lots of actions are made based on one's subconscious

- attributes weird problems in a patient to past situations they've endured

- taboo fears & desires -> (displacing) myth

-believes all men grow up with an Oedipus (kill dad, marry mom) complex, baby boy in competition with dad for mother's attention

- people come up with myths fraught with icky sins... they're displacing their own anxieties into the myth

founder of psychoanalysis, a controversial theory about the workings of the unconscious mind

Carl Jung (1875-1961)

-didn't agree with Freud that myths were produced by anxieties of the culture

- universal archetypes -> (particularizing) myth

- myth represents fictional characters that match archetypes

- characters in myth aren't representing anxieties, but actual personality types

-believes we're all born with archetypes in our minds already, we're all walking around with a shared belief...see "collective unconscious" notecard

student of Freud who believed that humans share a collective unconscious

collective unconscious

Jung's theory that we all share a belief/collection of pre-existing personality archetypes known as __________

Joseph Campbell

(1904 - 1987)

- wrote "The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (1949)

- a religion scholar

- came up with the term "monomyth" (see card)

- monomyth: pick a myth and it will fit the pattern of "The Hero's Journey" in his book... all myths are variations of one story

- stages of "A Hero's Journey"

- call to adventure, supernatural aid, threshold

(beginning of transformation), challenges and

temptations, transformation, atonement, return

- inspired Cristopher Vogler (see card)

- book inspired Spielburg and George Lucas, movie writing (Star Wars), 1970s-1980s

Monomyth

- term coined by Joseph Campbell

- pick a myth and it will fit the pattern of "The Hero's Journey" in his book... all myths are variations of one story

- the hero's journey archetype that appears in all cultures; the common template of a broad category of tales that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, and in a decisive crisis wins a victory, and then comes home changed or transformed.

Cristopher Vogler

(1941-present)

- wrote "The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers" (1992)

- inspired by Joseph Campbell

Tertullian

(155-240 AD)

- "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?" (aka Christians should distance themselves from all things pagan)

- Christians shouldn't attend athletic games/theatre (which were held in pagan temenos, considered idolatrous and immoral)

- De Spectaculis -> his book, means "about shows"

- demon-created ritual -> (false) pagan myth

- like Jane Harrison's colleagues known as the "Cambridge School" and Frazer's Golden Bough

Clement of Alexandria

AD 150-215

- wrote "Protrepticus", a book meaning "Turning Toward" trying to convince people to be Christian

- myths are created because people are burdened by sin

- sin -> distorted view of natural and psychological phenomena -> false pagan myth

- said humans "deified penalties, worshipping avengers of crimes deifying fear and love and hope"

Martianus Capella

(floruit 410-420AD)

- "De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii"; one of the most influential books besides the Bible; Christian work based on Greek mythology

- concerning the marriage of philology (study

of language) and Mercury (representing

profitable pursuit/business)

- allegory (see allegory notecard)

- Mercury tries to marry Wisdom, Soul,

Divination... ends up with Philologia. Among

wedding gifts are the several liberal arts.

Allegory

a metaphor in which a character, place, or event is used to symbolize a concept

Theagenes of Rhegium

(floruit 529-522 BC)

- defended Homeric hymns from attacks on moral grounds

- allegorical reading in which the gods symbolize various physical elements

- kind of a dumb thought

Dante Alighieri

(1265-1321)

- wrote the "Divina Commedia" (the Divine Comedy)

- Dante's Inferno, Christian journey led by Virgil (allegory)

John Milton

(1608-1674)

- wrote Paradise Lost 1667

- loves Greek Mythology, imitating Greek epic

- thinks myth comes from demons, like Tertullian

C. S. Lewis

(1898-1963)

- (true) Christian myth -> "good dreams" -> (true-ish) pagan myth

"myth is the partial solution"

Aeschylus

Who wrote the Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Eumenides

sophocles

Who wrote Antigone and Oedipus the King?

Euripides

Who wrote alcestis, hippolytus, and Bachae?

who are the characters in agamemnon?

King Agamemnon son of atreus and king of argos, his wife Clytemnestra, Aegisthus cousin of agamemnon, the Chorus, Cassandra daughter of king priam of troy, the Watchman, and the Herald; argos.

who are the characters in libation bearers?

orestes son of agamemnon and clytemnestra, clytemnestra, aegisthus, electra, chorus (slave women), nurse, apollo, hermes, the furies, agamemnon, argos.

who are the characters in the eumenides?

orestes, athena, the furies, apollo, clytemnestra's ghost, agamemnon. set in athens.

characters in antigone

creon, antigone, ismene, tiresias, eurydice, chorus, sentry. set in thebes.

who are the characters in oedipus the king?

oedipus king of thebes, tiresias, creon, jocasta, priest.

characters in alcestis?

apollo (monologue), death, chorus elders of pherae, servant, alcestis wife of admetus, admetus king of pherae, eumelus son of admetus and alcestis, heracles, pheres father of admetus.

characters in hippolytus

aphrodite (monologue), hippolytus son of theseus and amazon queen, theseus king of troezen, phaedra wife of theseus, chorus of huntsmen, retainer, chorus of women of troezen and athens, artemis goddess of hunt

characters in Bacchae

dionysus (monologue) god of wine, chorus of women followers of bacchus, tiresias, cadmus founder and former king of thebes, soldier, herdsman of mount cithaeron, Agave mother of pentheus daughter of cadmus. set in thebes.

Genealogy

Specific phrase used by the poet to name based on a parent or ancestor based on importance Ex. Athena Daughter of Zeus

Theology

study of the divine

Time

Honor- Your standing in your community- the thing you have/do that represent your standing. For the gods this is like a job description. Ex. Aphrodite goddess of love

Aetiology

A story giving an explanation of the origin of a name, a place, or a custom. Why things are the way they are/why we do them a certain way

aparche

The first thing that is done to represent the wholeness of the animal to the god during sacrifice. A way of announcing new ownership- Often done by taking a tuft of the animal's hair and throwing it in the fire

Synchretism

When you stick together or blend elements of competing story systems/elements Ex. St. Nick and Santa

polis

greek city state; public life

pompē

parade; procession

euchē

prayer

Aparchē

given produce to gods; a portion; first fruits

Epithet

Word or phrase that is descriptive that is attached to a name.Ex. Crooked Kronos or Swift-footed Achilles

Catalogue

List- in this context a list of names of gods, people, or places

Panhellenic

Anything that deals with all Greeks