Myth Topic 3

 

 

There is no ONE correct story

 

 

Source study and the comparative approach:

Indo-Europeans—reconstructed language study

What types of words do they have—extrapolate their culture

Jupiter and Zeus are related words—“Sky god”?

 

 

 

Linear B tablets—

Mycenaean Age (1600–1050 BC)

names of Gods, but no information—no MYTHS.

Perhaps “just” religion

See ACM, Appendix B, pp. 439–454, esp. 443

 

 

How did we get the Greek myths?

Step 1, the poets aoidoi

“bard”/oral poet

in Archaic period

Homer, Hesiod

 

Step 2: Greek Myth in Writing:

The Archaic Period

Homer (c.750 - 700 BC) : Iliad and Odyssey

Epic—song about heroes

Iliad : Achilles at Troy

Odyssey : Odysseus’ homecoming from Troy

 

The oldest texts, but there is obviously a ton of tradition lying behind these poems.  Homer didn’t make this stuff up

He is very clearly riffing on an existing tradition

 

Hesiod (c. 700): “Less influential, more important”

Theogony

“Origin of the gods”

Hesiod on the origin of Poetry:

The Muses lines 1–115

born of Memory

 

The Works and Days

Didactic / farming

lots of mythological content

 

 

 

Cyclic Poems

Post-Homer epics

fill in the gaps

Most don’t survive; we have ancient summaries

 

 

 

 

 

Homeric Hymns

Invocation of a god, with stories

Not by Homer, but many are as old as Homer

Demeter, Apollo, Hermes, Aphrodite

 

 

 

Classical Period: 479–323 BC

There is no authoritative TEXT like the Bible

 

 

Rhapsodes

professional performers of Archaic poetry

texts like Homer begin to get standardized

 

Tragedy—“Goat Song”

live performance (all Greek lit was meant to be HEARD)

3 male actors—wore masks

words and exaggerated gestures

popular entertainment

Aristotle: the audience is “cleansed through pity and fear”

experience the protagonist's fate—expand your own experience harmlessly

 

 

 

Myth often serves as a background to these:

Playwrights:

Aeschylus (525-456 BCE)

Seven against Thebes

The Oresteia

Agamemnon

The Libation Bearers

The Eumenides

Prometheus Bound

 

 

 

 

 

Sophocles (c. 496-406 BCE)

Theban Plays:

Oedipus the King

Oedipus at Colonnus

Antigone

Electra

 

 

 

 

 

Euripides (c. 484-406 BCE)

Heracles Insane

Medea

The Bacchae

 

 

 

 

Hellenistic Period 323–30 BC

The Library at Alexandria

mouseion –hall of muses

 

 

Mythographers: retellings of summaries of myths

our main sources for many important myths

                the Sparknotes of ancient myth

 

(Pseudo)-Apollodorus (2nd century CE ?)

Library—a retelling of just the guts of myths

 

Lucian (2nd century CE)

Witty dialogues of gods and heroes

Assume deep knowledge of mythology, while poking fun at it

 

 

Greek Myth in the Rome Roman Period (31 BCE – 400 CE)

 

Vergil (70-19 BCE )

Aeneid

Georgics

Eclogues

 

Ovid (43 BC – 17 CE)

Metamorphoses

 

Statius (c. 45– 96 CE)

Thebaid

Achilleid (incomplete)

 

Mythographers:

Hyginus (ca. 64 BCE –17 CE)

Fabulae compiled / abridged in 4th/5th century