Chapter One, Lecture Two

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Chapter One, Lecture Two

• The Nature of Myth

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Types of Myth

• Can be distinguished by the nature of the main
  characters and the meaning they had for the
  listeners.
• Divine Myth
• Supernatural beings are the main actors
• Legend (Saga)
• Main actors are human heroes
• Folktales
• Main actors are ordinary people or animals

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Divine Myths

• Aka
• True Myths or Myths Proper

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Gods are beings that are vastly superior, more
  powerful, and more splendid than human beings.
• Control forces of nature and whose quarrels can
  cause cosmic cataclysms.
• Sometimes fully developed personalities,
  sometimes mere personified abstractions
• Zeus as opposed to Nikê ( Gk. victory)

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Their divine myths take place in illo tempore (a
  time when the world was different from the way it
  is now).
• Before time and space functioned as it does now.
• The Greeks did not ask how long ago Zeuss battle
  against the Titans took place.

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Though these divine myths and the gods have
  religious implications, they do not constitute
  religion.
• A myth is a story.
• Religion is a set of actions directed by beliefs.

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Divine myth often provide the grand explanations
  for why the cosmos is the way it is.
• Its overall structure
• Its rhythms
• Humankinds place in it and its duties and roles.

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Myths with explanatory purpose are called
  etiological.
• Origin of Mt. Etna (Typhoeus)
• Why the season vary (Persephonê and Demeter)
• Why gods and goddesses are worshipped the way
  they are (Demeter as a mare)

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Types of Myth Divine Myth

• Divine myth and modern theoretical science both
  tell of the origins of the fundamental
  arrangement of the cosmos as we experience it
• Divine myth attributes the causes to the acts of
  willing, sapient beings
• Theoretical science refers to impersonal and
  general laws

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Types of Myth

• Legend

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Legend

• As divine myth is analogous to theoretical
  science, so legend is analogous to history.
• What happened in the human past?
• Central characters are great human heroes.
• The gods play a role, but they are not center
  stage.
• Apollo orders Orestes to kill his mother, but
  Orestes is the main character.

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Legend

• These are not the acts of ordinary human beings,
  but they are still human.
• Legends take place on earth in the remote past
  and were thought by the Greeks to be real human
  events.
• But the Greeks main interest wasnt historical
  accuracy but in the human drama of the events.

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Legend

• Hence legends tell us much about what the
  transmitters of the myths thought was important
  to understand.
• The archaeological discovery of the Bronze Age
  reveals that these legends contain elements of
  historical accuracy.
• Eg., Troy

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Legends

• May have etiological function as well
• Why do the Greeks drink their wine from
  individual cups at one festival only but not at
  the others?
• An event in the myth of Orestes explains it.

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Folktale
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Folktale

• More difficult to define and describe
• Often merely described by what it is not a
  traditional that is not a divine myth or legend.
• A broad category that can include fables and
  fairytales, too.
• Main characters are not great men and women, but
  just plain folk or ordinary animals (with the
  power to speak).

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Folktale

• The characters are not believed to have really
  existed.
• Often of very low social status,
  (mis)underestimated and abused by their social
  betters.
• Folktale ends with reversal of fortune.
• Hero outwits his opponents

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Folktale

• Primary purpose is to entertain.
• May also explain or justify traditional forms of
  society and beliefs.
• Good eventually wins out
• Family structures and order
• Many popular films, TV programs, and novels are
  analogous to folktales.

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Folktale

• Few pure folktales survive from the Greeks and
  Romans.
• Myths that were written down and hence survived
  appealed mostly to the educated, literate elite,
  who had little or no interest in tales of the
  common folk.
• But divine myths and legends have recognizable
  elements of folktale.
• A folktale element is called a type and motif.

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Folktale

• Basic element of folktale is the motif
• abused younger sister, spirit helper, marriage to
  a prince, the wicked mother-in-law, the foundling
  child and so on.
• There are thousands of these motifs.
• Motifs are used to make up the folktale types.
• A folktale type can use different motifs, but a
  folktale type will have an identifiable form in
  the end.

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Folktale

• One folktale type is the quest.
• search for a special object take hero to a
  strange land . . .
• These motifs appear in the heroic myth of
  Perseus.
• It also contains elements that more suitable for
  heroic legend.
• Greek myths will often blend characteristics of
  the different kinds of myth into one.

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Perspective 1.2

• The Brothers Grimm

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Perspective 1.2 The Brothers Grimm

• They claim their stories collected from a
  peasant woman
• Peasant woman did not exist
• Stories gathered from educated women
• Later editions show much embellishment
• The Frog King
• Had they violated the original folktale or merely
  added agreeable and unimportant detail within the
  motifs that make up the original tale?

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The Study of Myth
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The Study of Myth

• Mythology is not myth as such.
• The Study of Myth must collect the myths and then
  try to understand what they were to the people
  who told them and what they might mean for human
  beings in general.

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The Study of Myth

• Collecting the Stories (What were they?)
• literary evidence
• archaeological evidence
• Cultural Significance of the stories (What did
  they mean to their original audience?)
• Why were they told, by whom and why?

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Study of Myth

• Comparative Approach (What are they like?)
• Are the classical myths like myths that operate
  in other cultures?
• How did the Greeks change the myths they
  inherited from the Near East?
• Assessment of Myth (What they might mean for us?)
• Do they have deeper human meaning for all human
  beings?

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Classical Names Pronunciation and Spelling
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Classical Names

• Some names and words are pronounced in a way that
  may be close to the original.
• Many others have acquired a simply conventional
  pronunciation, and sometimes the conventional
  pronunciation will vary.
• Just listen to the professor, note the phonetic
  spelling in the book when the term is first used,
  and/or listen to the audio files on the books
  website.

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Summary

• There are different types of myth
• The Divine (or Pure)
• The Legend
• The Folktale
• The study of myth (ie. mythology) tries to
  uncover a myth-complex by compiling the variety
  of evidence and tries to understand the myths
  significance within the culture and without.
• Good luck on the pronunciation. Were here to
  help you.