1. What is Myth? Dean Stevens Peer Teaching Classical Mythology Unit

2. What is Myth? Fact or Fiction? μύθος Characteristics of Myth Culture Specific or Universal? Why Myth? Is Myth Science? Religion? Something Else? Theories/Classification of Myth?

3. Characteristics of Myth Supernatural Stories involving gods, and/or heroes Originally Oral Tradition Cultural World View/Prehistory Can change, No Set Story Can have several versions Can be contradictory Written myth is the end of a very long evolutionary process

4. Myth in Greek Culture Anthropomorphic Polytheism Humanism Individualism Competitiveness

5. Anthropomorphic Polytheism

6. Humanism Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things…” Bonnie Tyler: “I need a Hero…”

7. Individualism What about me??? Achilles is about to kill Penthesileia, the Amazon Queen at Troy: Large Athenian amphora,c.540 BC, found at Vulci in Etruria.Large Athenian amphora

8. Competitiveness Achilles: Glory or Obscurity?

9. Are Myths Universal? Flood Myth Hero Archetypes Creation Myth

10. Why Myth? To Entertain To explain the unexplainable Retelling Prehistory

11. Why Myth?: Ancient Greeks 6 th Century BCE Scientific Observation Theagnes of Rhegion (c. 525 BCE): --Gods are symbolic of natural processes Anaxagoras : gods can’t be taken literally Xenophanes: gods are immoral and are fashioned in our own image Euhermerus of Messene 300 BCE: Fiction: Gods were mortal kings

12. Why Myth?: Modern Interpretation 2 types of Theories: External/Internal External: Environmental Internal: Comes from within us

13. External Theories of Myth Nature Myth Theory Ritual Myth Theory Etiological Theory

14. Internal Theory Freudian Theory Wish fulfillment/violation of taboos Dionysos is Id—repression of Dionysos leads to perversion and violent outbreaks Explains tragedy. Doesn’t Explain ancient cultural roots of many myths

15. Internal Theory Carl Jung Archetypal Myths Myths similar to dreams Claude Levi-Strauss Structuralism: World is a reflection of mind’s binary organization (good vs. evil, light vs. dark) Myth deals with reconciliation of opposites Divine will versus human ambition

16. Classifying Myth Cosmology/Cosmogony/Creation Myth Hesiod Theogony

17. Classifying Myth Allegory/Symbol The Castration of Uranus: fresco by Vasari & Cristofano Gherardi c. 1560