January 12, 2011 CLA204H1 Lecture 1: Introduction A) What is myth?

Traditionally tale or story Comes from the Greek muthos meaning either authoritative speech, story, or plot Mythology < muthos (story) + logos (account) = study of myth (Powell) Structure: (i) Beginning (ii) Middle (conflict) (iii)End Characters: gods, goddesses, other supernatural beings, human beings, animals Setting: never in present or recent past, always in distant past or outside of human chronology; possibly a city or other human place etc. B) Functions of Myth Traditional: from Latin word trudo, meaning give over or transmit Oral memorized and recited before written from (unstable) Communal: important for its community preserves wisdom, concerns, laws, values of a culture (i.e., the marriages) Anonymous: no authors of originals 1. Literary takes myths and presents specific version (e.g., Homer, Sophocles present different version of same myth) (i) i.e. Oedipus story Truth: Greeks thought myths were accounts of history C) Genres of Myth Genre: classification of literary works on the basis of content, form or technique 3 main genres of traditional tale: 1. Divine Myth (i) Prose narratives considered to be truthful accounts of what happened in the remote past (ii) Characters: gods, goddess, superior to normal humans (iii)Conflicts are on large scale: ocean, sky, land (iv) Setting: world before/outside of present order, Olympus Zeus/Olympians vs. Titans (v) Basis of religion: but not the dame as religion (vi) Etiological accounts (from Greek aitios) explain world as it is in non-scientific ways
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January 12, 2011 (vii) Origins of world, humankind, death, or origins of relationships between god/human (viii) Social institution: agriculture, making of wine, oracles (ix) Origins of Aetna (Zeus vs. Typhoneus) {insert: picture of vase with Zeus and Typh} 2. Legend (i) Like history, tries to answer what happened in human past (ii) Setting: less remote, our own world but distant past (iii)Characters: tend to be human, heroes and heroines; more beautiful, stronger etc Less gods/goddesses but still supernatural elements (iv) Topics: migrations, wars, and victories, dread of past heroes, chiefs, and kings and succession in ruling dynasties (v) Element of truth: sometimes reflects major events confirmed by archaeological records (Trojan war, Minoans) (vi) Local tales, buried treasure, ghosts, fairies and giants 3. Folktale (i) Fiction: makes no claims to the truth, history (ii) Characters: ordinary men, women, children of lower social status (iii)Purpose: amusement, but can have other important functions like teaching, justifying customary patterns of behaviour Good rewarded, evil punished, happy ending (iv) Setting: timeless and placeless (v) Fantasy: fairies, ogres and deities may appear, animals or human characters (vi) Plot types: quest, homecoming husband, ogre, stupid villain, clever hero (vii) Motifs: magical objects, exposited child, miraculous birth, marriage to princess (viii)You will have overlap of fairytales and deities D) Where? Historical Classic myth Mediterranean Greece and Asia minor North: Thessaly and Macedonia Just South: Boeotia (Thebes) Southwest: Attica (Athens) Below Attica: Peloponnese (Corinth, Sparta, Messenia, Elis) Focus on city-state (poleis) E) Historical Periods 1. Early Bronze Age (3000 1600 BCE) (i) Farmers: invasions by Indo-Europeans settled there
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January 12, 2011 (ii) Minoans (2200-1400) Crete (Cnossos is capital) King Minos (wife slept with bull!) Labrys axe (labyrinth) Powerful army Obsessed with bulls Middle Bronze Age (1600 1150 BCE) (i) Mycenaean Age Great wealth Palaces in Mycenae, Thebes, Pylos Linear B (deciphered by Ventris) 1150: most palaces destroyed at this time Dark Age (1150 800 BCE) (i) Invasions of Dorians (northwest Greece) (ii) West-world migration of mainland Greeks (iii)Social disorganization, depopulation, poverty (iv) Smaller kings, tribes replaces previous ruling due to the depopulation (v) Little surviving materials/evidence Archaic Age (800 480 BCE) (i) Invention of Greek alphabet (ii) Homer/Hesiod written down at this time (iii)Colonization (iv) Invention of city-state, citizenship (v) Commune (vi) Coinage (vii) 650 500: age of tyrants (not villains) Classical Period (480 323 BCE) (i) Cleisthenes Reforms (508) Democracy installed/takes shape (ii) Persian Wars: Marathon (490), Salamis (480), Plataea (479) (iii)Evolving Democracy (iv) Development of the Arts Tragedy: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides History: Herodotus, Thucydides Philosophy: Plato, Aristotle Oratory (v) Peloponnesian War (431 404): Athens vs. Sparta Hellenistic Period (323 30 BCE) (i) Philip II of Macedonia: overran Greek city-states in 338 Killed in 336, Alexander took over (ii) Alexander: destroyed Persian empire, expanded as far as India

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January 12, 2011 Died in 323 of fever: beginning of Hellenistic Period (iii)Alexs kingdom broke into 4: Macedonia, Egypt, Seleucia, Pergamum (iv) Kingdoms established on Greek model (v) Cultured capital was Alexandria, Egypt (vi) Rome conquered Egypt in 30 BCE 7. Rome Period (30 BCE 1453 CE) (i) Augustus (ruling: 31 BCE 14 CE) (ii) Ovid (living: 43 BCE 17 CE) (iii)Metamorphoses (8 CE) (iv) Hyginus (2nd century CE) F) Cosmogony and Theogony 1. Cosmogony: Birth of the world, genealogy of nature (i) Near eastern antecedents: Babylonian Enuma Elish (flood myth) Marduk (order) vs. Tiamat (Disorder) 2. Theogony: Birth of the gods, genealogy of deities (i) Hesiods Theogony Succession myth Ouranos (Uranus) overthrown by Cronus (Saturn) and Titans Titans overthrown by Zeus (Jupiter) and Olympians