Mythology Exam Notes

Humanism

  • Focuses on human experience, dignity, and values in myths.
  • Often contrasts with divine influence.

Historicism

  • Interprets myths within the historical and cultural context in which they were told.

Idealism

  • Focuses on abstract ideas or values as driving forces in myths.
  • Examples: justice, fate, or love.

Textualism

  • Close reading of the text itself to derive meaning.
  • Considers structure, form, and language.

Exogamy and Endogamy

  • Exogamy: Marriage outside the kin group (associated with culture).
  • Endogamy: Marriage within the kin group (associated with nature).
  • Key concept in structuralist analysis.

Gender

  • Myths reflect and challenge gender norms.
  • Examples: Medea, Athena.

Ethnicity

  • Explored in Medea.
  • Shows "Greek" vs. "barbarian" as fluid, constructed categories.

Key Figures in Greek Mythology

Zeus

  • King of the gods.
  • God of law, sky, and thunder.
  • Maintains order and punishes oath-breakers.

Athena

  • Goddess of wisdom and war.
  • Aids heroes like Odysseus and Perseus.
  • Born from Zeus’s head.

Apollo

  • God of prophecy, music, and plague.
  • Associated with the Oracle at Delphi and the lyre.

Dionysus

  • God of wine, ecstasy, and theater.
  • Myths often involve madness and identity shifts.

Demeter

  • Goddess of agriculture and fertility.
  • Mother of Persephone.
  • Central to the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Aphrodite

  • Goddess of love and beauty.
  • Mother of Eros (Cupid).
  • Linked to passion and conflict.

Cronus

  • Titan who overthrew Uranus, only to be overthrown by Zeus.
  • Symbol of generational strife.

Artemis

  • Virgin goddess of the hunt and childbirth.
  • Associated with the moon.
  • Twin of Apollo.

Hecate

  • Goddess of magic, crossroads, and the underworld.
  • Assists Medea in some myths.

Hades

  • God of the underworld.
  • Brother of Zeus and Poseidon.

Key Figures in Mythological Studies

Claude Levi-Strauss

  • Anthropologist who used structuralism to analyze myths, especially kinship structures.

Friedrich Nietzsche

  • Philosopher who saw myth as a balance of Apollonian (order) and Dionysian (chaos) forces.

Heinrich Schliemann

  • Archaeologist who claimed to discover the historical site of Troy using Homer’s epics.

James George Frazer

  • Author of The Golden Bough.
  • Compared myths globally, focusing on ritual and magic.

Aristotle

  • Philosopher who defined tragedy in Poetics.
  • Emphasized plot, catharsis, and character.

Sigmund Freud

  • Psychoanalyst who interpreted myths like Oedipus through unconscious desires and family conflict.

Martin Bernal

  • Author of Black Athena.
  • Argued that Greek civilization was influenced by African and Asian cultures.

Key Mythological Texts

Theogony

  • Hesiod’s poem about the origins and genealogy of the gods.
  • Features cosmic battles and succession.

Homeric Hymn to Demeter

  • Tells how Persephone was abducted by Hades.
  • Explains the seasons and mother-daughter bonds.

Homeric Hymn to Apollo

  • Describes Apollo’s birth and establishment of his oracle at Delphi.

Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite

  • Depicts Aphrodite seducing the mortal Anchises and bearing Aeneas.

Apuleius (Cupid and Psyche)

  • Roman author of Metamorphoses.
  • His tale allegorizes the soul (Psyche) joining love (Cupid) to achieve pleasure.

Odyssey

  • Epic by Homer chronicling Odysseus’s return home.
  • Themes of identity, cunning, and fate.

Medea

  • Tragedy by Euripides.
  • Medea, a foreign sorceress, murders her children to avenge Jason’s betrayal.

Oedipus Rex

  • Sophocles’ play about a man doomed to kill his father and marry his mother, despite trying to avoid fate.

Characters in Mythological Texts

Creon

  • King of Thebes.
  • Represents state authority.
  • Appears in Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

Psyche

  • Mortal who falls in love with Cupid.
  • Represents the soul enduring trials to reach divine pleasure.

Jocasta

  • Queen of Thebes, wife and mother of Oedipus.
  • Kills herself upon learning the truth.

Pelias

  • King who sends Jason on the quest for the Golden Fleece.
  • Killed indirectly by Medea’s deception.

Oedipus

  • Theban king fated to kill his father and marry his mother.
  • Symbol of tragic irony and fate.

Tireisias

  • Blind prophet of Thebes.
  • Transformed into a woman for seven years.
  • Seen in multiple myths.

Adonis

  • Beautiful youth loved by Aphrodite.
  • Killed by a boar.
  • His myth represents seasonal death and rebirth.

Jason

  • Leader of the Argonauts.
  • Sought the Golden Fleece.
  • Betrayed Medea, prompting her revenge.

Locations in Greek Mythology

Athens

  • City-state associated with wisdom, law, and tragedy.
  • Mythical home of Theseus and Athena.

Thebes

  • City cursed with tragic cycles.
  • Setting for Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

Corinth

  • City where Medea and Jason lived post-quest.
  • Site of betrayal and vengeance.

Cyprus

  • Island sacred to Aphrodite.
  • A cultural meeting point between East and West.