Classical Myth --- Introduction

When I first taught this course I welcomed my students to this Art History / Astronomy /
Film / Literature / Psychology / Contemporary culture class.

Because CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY can be found in the study of these and other
disciplines.

 Let’s look at the sky. How many stars, constellation and planets are named after
an hero of CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY?
 Let’s think of a movie like Troy, or Walt Disney’s Hercules
 Let’s think of the Oedipus Complex, explained by Freud (or the Electra’s
Complex studied by Jung).
 Let’s think of the wonderful paintings of the Italian and European Renaissance
(the works of Botticelli, Titian, Guido Reni, Rubens, to mention only a few artists)

THIS IS JUST A BRIEF SAMPLE OF THE INNUMERABLE INSTANCES

WHERE WE CAN FIND REFERENCE TO CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY.

Even the US National Anthem has mythological roots. Look at this excerpt from Mark P.
O. Morford and Robert J. Lenardon, classical Mythology, 8th Ed. Oxford University
Press, p. 763
 Intro to Classical Myth

What’s Mythology?

Mythology is the study of myths

What’s a myth?

According to the Webster’s dictionary, a myth is ...

A traditional or legendary story, especially one that involves gods and heroes and explains a
cultural practice or natural phenomenon.

DRAE (Diccionario de la Real Academia Española)

Fábula, ficción alegórica, especialmente en materia religiosa.
Relato o noticia que desfigura lo que realmente es una cosa

Zingarelli (Dizionario della lingua italiana)

Narrazione sacra di avvenimenti relativi all’origine dell’universo, di imprese di fondazioni
culturali e di gesta di dei e di eroi.

INTERPRETATIONS CAN BE BROAD,

BUT EVERY DEFINITION AGREE BASICALLY ON ONE POINT:
A MYTH IS A STORY

Actually, this is the meaning of the Greek word MYTHOS:

A STORY, A TALE, AN AUTORITATIVE SPEECH.

The word myth (Greek: mythos) literally means “utterance” or “something one says.” Greek
myth was originally an oral phenomenon, transmitted by word of mouth from one anonymous
storyteller to the next. As such, it was liable to change with each telling. Consequently, most
myths, inherently flexible, survive in several versions, whose detains may even contradict each
other.

A myth is a story, a tale, primarily concerned with gods and the supernatural.

Unlike legends and folktales, there is no perceptible relation to history in myths (though, still in
the ancient Greece, there was who claimed that all the gods were men deified for their great
deeds -- Euhemerus, 300 bc) .

Generally speaking a Myth is opposed to reality, to factual knowledge.

That is why sometimes we hear the sentence “It’s a myth” referring to something untrue.

Nevertheless, a myth can be used to give an universal (timeless) interpretation of reality, the
origin of our physical world (creation) or the mind of the individuals.

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 Intro to Classical Myth

Myth has usefully been defined as

A TRADITIONAL STORY WITH COLLECTIVE IMPORTANCE.
(Burkert : “A traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance.”)

 They are traditional because they are stories that are passed orally from one storyteller to
another ( from one generation to another)
From the Latin trado = hand over
 They are of collective importance because they hold meanings for the group, not just the
individual.

When Freud identified the so called Oedipus complex he used the Greek myth to give a
explanation of a specific human behavior (the man’s behavior in relation to his mother).

Myths explain patterns of behavior

that serve as models for members of a given society.

 Mythic events are subtly grounded in the values of the myth-producing society.
 Myth expresses a community’s distinctive view of the world.
 Through story, it helps the members of the community to define, confront, and perhaps
resolve tensions that its members perceive in the way their world works.

(Roland Bathes in his book Mythologies studied some modern myth, not necessarily associated
with the classical figures, but strictly connected to our society.)

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 Intro to Classical Myth

THE ELEMENTS OF MYTH ARE PLOT, CHARACTERS, AND SETTING.

NO HISTORICAL TRUTH IS INVOLVED IN MYTHS.

Aristotle defines myth as a plot-structure in a literary work.

Because myths are traditional stories, they are also anonymous

Literary works based on myths may have an author, but not the myths themselves

In fact, our richest source of information about Greek mythology is literary—made up of the epic
poems of Homer (The Iliad and the Odyssey) and Hesiod and the body of Greek tragedy written
(particularly) by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.

Greek tragic dramas based on myth were performed in Athens at an annual festival of Dionysus
called the City Dionysia (THE DIONYSIA FESTIVAL OF ATHENS) . At this festival, the
audience watched ritual dramas focused on the sufferings of a mythic figure, the tragic hero.

Greek tragedy was written in fifth-century B.C. Athens and reflects the concerns of the audience
in that newly-democratic state. Homer’s epics, like Hesiod’s poetry, were composed earlier than
that and represent a broad body of traditions shared by Greeks wherever they lived in the Archaic
period.

In addition to he epics and tragedy, other works of literature including mythic elements are the
Homeric Hymns, the tragic drama, and some lyric poems.

In the hands of the great poets, Greek myths acquire a focus on humanistic values, placing
human consciousness in the center of the universe.

Greek literature reflects the influence of myth. In the hands of the great poets, Greek myths
acquire a focus on humanistic values, placing human consciousness in the center of the universe.
Protagoras declared, “Man is the measure of all things.”

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 Intro to Classical Myth

There have been attempts at recording ancient traditions faithfully: the Library, attributed
(erroneously) to Apollodorus of Athens, contains a large collection of ancient tales.
Pausanias’s Guide to Greece also attempts to record ancient traditions. Plutarch recorded local
beliefs and myths of his homeland.

Ovid, a leading Roman poet during the reign of Augustus, created the most important collection
of Greco-Roman tales: the Metamorphoses of the Gods.

Ovid’s work use the traditional stories of Greek myth in a very entertaining and witty way.
Virgil’s epic Aeneid, on the other hand, seriously celebrates the origins of Rome and the virtues
which were necessary for Rome’s growth.
Roman audiences learned, through the Aeneid, that only self-discipline, self-sacrifice, and
dedication to the good of family, the gods, and the state allowed for the living of a decent life.

Aeneas, through his descent from Aphrodite and Anchises, connected Roman myth with the
mythical world of Greece.

Unlike mythos, “story”, logos “account” is not anonymous.

While the teller of a logos takes responsibility for the truth of what is said,
the teller of a mythos does not claim personal responsibility for what is said.

Because myths are transmitted orally,

different narrators of a story have different motives
and emphasize or embroider on different aspects.

In the written works in which myths have been preserved,

we often find strikingly different versions of the same myth.