Chapter One, Lecture Two The Nature of Myth

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

Divine Myths Aka True Myths or Myths Proper

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)

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 Zeus’s battle against the Titans took place.

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.

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 –Humankind’s place in it and its duties and roles.

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)

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

Types of Myth 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.

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 wasn’t historical accuracy but in the human drama of the events.

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

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.

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).

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

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.

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.”

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.

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.

Perspective 1.2 The Brother’s Grimm

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?

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.

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?

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?

Classical Names: Pronunciation and Spelling

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 book’s website.

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 myth’s significance within the culture and without. Good luck on the pronunciation. We’re here to help you.