Transcript FOLK LITERATURE

FOLK LITERATURE
• Not all stories were written down when
they were first told.
• Folk literature comes from generations of
peoples or cultures that passed down their
favorite tales orally before ever writing them
down.
• Like a family recipe—folk literature holds
special enjoyment for all those who know it
and pass it on.
FOLK LITERATURE
• Myth = fictional tale that explains the actions
of the gods or the causes of natural
phenomena
• Myths involve supernatural elements and
have very little historical truth to them.
• Most familiar myths today are those of the
ancient Greeks and Romans.
FOLK LITERATURE
• Myths have several purposes:
– Serve as cultural history, explaining things like
oceans and mountains
– Reinforce a culture’s values
– Source of entertainment
• “Perseus,” p. 214, is a myth.
FOLK LITERATURE
• Folk tales= stories composed orally and then
passed by word of mouth
• Folk tales originated among people who could
neither read nor write.
• Composers entertained one another by telling
stories aloud, often about heroes, adventure,
magic, or romance.
• Like mythology, folk tales reinforce a culture’s
values and explain the natural world.
• “Talk,” p. 412, is a folk tale.
FOLK LITERATURE
• Tall tales are humorous
• Characters possess superhuman abilities and
impossible things occur in tall tales
• Tall tales were common on the American frontier
• The story of Paul Bunyan and his ox is a tall tale.
• Tall tales are told in common, everyday speech
and use some realistic detail + exaggeration
• The story of the pond freezing with the ducks in
Fried Green Tomatoes is also a tall tale.
FOLK LITERATURE
• Epics = long narrative poems about the deeds of
gods or heroes in war or travel.
• Epics are written in ornate, poetic language.
• Epics use myth, legend, and history and often
include the intervention of gods in human affairs.
• Epics begin with the poet announcing the subject
and asking a Muse, one of the nine goddesses of
the arts, literature, and sciences to help.
• Homer’s epic Odyssey, p. 980, tells the story of
the Greek hero Odysseus, the king of Ithaca.
Greek Mythology

The Iliad is the oldest work of western literature.
 Homer is credited with writing down the Iliad and Odyssey
in the late 9th or early 8th century B.C.
 Greek Mythology begins with Homer, generally believed not
to have lived any more than 900 years before Christ.
Homer
 The Egyptians made their gods as women with cat’s heads, or a
monstrous mysterious sphinx.
 In Mesopotamia, men with birds’ heads and lions with bulls’
heads, and both with eagles’ wings showed that they created
gods as things men had never seen except in their imagination.
 The Greeks were the first to make their gods in man’s image.
Having human-looking gods made heaven a very
familiar place. The Greeks felt at home in it. They knew
just what the divine inhabitants did there, what they
ate and drank and where they banqueted and how they
amused themselves. Of course, they were to be feared;
the gods were very powerful and very dangerous when
angry. Still, with proper care, a man could be quite at
ease with them, He was even perfectly free to laugh at
them!
It may seem strange, but the men who created the Greek
myths disliked the irrational and had a love for facts. Even the
most nonsensical tales take place in a setting that is rational
and matter-of-fact. Hercules, whose life is one long combat
against preposterous monsters, is always said to have had his
home in Thebes. The exact spot where Aphrodite was born of
the foam could be visited by any ancient tourist—just offshore
from the island of Cythera. The winged Pegasus, after
skimming the air all day, went every night to a stable in
Corinth. A familiar local habitation gave reality to all the
mythical beings. If the mixture seems childish, consider how
sensible the solid background is as compared with the Genie
who comes from nowhere when Aladdin rubs the lamp and
then returns to nowhere when he is done.
1. The terrifying irrational has no place in classical mythology.
2. Magic, so powerful in the world before and after Greece, is almost
nonexistent.
3. There are no men and only two women with dreadful, supernatural
powers. The witches who haunt Europe and America play no part in
these stories. There are only two witches: Circe and Medea, and
they are young and beautiful, delightful, not horrible.
4. There is no astrology in Greek myths. There are many stories about
the stars, but there is no trace of the stars influencing men’s lives.
5. Not a single story has a magical priest who is to be feared because he
can win over the gods or alienate them. The priest is never seen and
rarely important.
6. Ghosts do not make an appearance in Greek myths, either. The
Greeks were not afraid of the dead.
Beware: Though Greek mythology is made up of stories about gods and
goddesses, it must not be read as a kind of Greek Bible, and account of
Greek religion. Greek mythology was more an explanation of
something in nature.
Thunder and lightning occur when Zeus hurls his thunderbolt.
A volcano erupts because a terrible creature is imprisoned in the mountain and is
trying to get out.
The Big Dipper does not set below the horizon because a goddess once was angry
at it and decreed that it should never sink into the sea.
Myths = early science, the result of men trying to explain what they
saw around them.
Myths = early literature as well; some are just for entertainment
and explain nothing.
The Gods, The Creation, and the Earliest Heroes
 Before there were gods, heaven and earth had been formed. They were the first
parents. The Titans were their children, and the gods were their grandchildren.
Titans:
1. Enormous in size
2. Incredibly strong
3. Many in number, though only a few appear in Greek mythology
4. Most important Titan was Cronus (Saturn in Rome) He ruled over the other Titans until
his son Zeus (Jupiter) dethroned him and seized power for himself.
5. Other Titans were Ocean, the river encircling the earth, his wife Tethys; Hyperion, the
father of the sun, moon, and the dawn; Mnemosyne, which means memory; Themis, or
Justice; Iapetus who was the father of Atlas, who carried the world on his shoulders and
Prometheus, who was the savior of mankind. These alone were not banished when Zeus
came to power, but they took a lower position.
Olympians
 The twelve great Olympians were supreme among the gods who came after the Titans.
They are called Olympians because they lived at Olympus. Olympus is not heaven. Poseidon
rules the sea, Hades rules the dead, Zeus rules the heavens, but they all live on Mt. Olympus.
Twelve Olympians:
1. Zeus (Jupiter), the chief god.
2. Poseidon (Neptune), his brother.
3. Hades (Pluto), his other brother.
4. Hestia (Vesta), their sister.
5. Hera (Juno), Zeus’s wife.
6. Ares (Mars) Zeus and Hera’s son.
Zeus’s other children:
7. Athena (Minerva)
8. Apollo
9. Aphrodite (Venus)
10.Hermes (Mercury)
11.Artemis (Diana)
12.Hera’s son Hephaestus (Vulcan) sometime said to also be Zeus’s son.
Zeus
Most powerful of the gods, but not omnipotent nor omniscient; he could be
opposed and deceived.
Fate is often spoken of as stronger than Zeus.
 Zeus falls in love with one woman after another, and plays all kinds of tricks
to hide it from his wife, Hera.
His breastplate was the aegis, awful to behold; his bird was the eagle, his tree the oak. Zeus’s
will was read by the rustling of the oak leaves which the priests interpreted.
Zeus’s sister and his wife.
Hera
She was reared by Ocean and Tethys.
Hera is the protector of marriage, and married women were her particular care.
She punished the many women Zeus falls In love with, even when they gave in only when he
coerced or tricked them. It made no difference to Hera how reluctant or how innocent any
of them were, she treated them all alike. Her anger followed them and their children, too.
Hera never forgot an injury. The Trojan War would have ended in peace if it had not been for
her hatred of a Trojan who had judged another goddess lovelier than she.
The cow and the peacock are sacred to her. Argos was her favorite city.
Poseidon
1. Ruler of the sea, second only to his brother Zeus in power.
2. Married to Amphitrite, a granddaughter of Ocean.
3. Has a splendid palace under the sea, but often found in Olympus.
4. He gave the horse to man.
5. Storm and calm were under his control.
6. He was commonly called “Earth-shaker” and was always shown
carrying his trident, a three-pronged spear, with which he would
shake and shatter whatever he pleased.
Hades or Pluto
 God of the underworld and the dead; as Pluto, he was the god of the wealth, of
the precious metals hidden under the earth.
 He had a famous cap or helmet that made anyone who wore it invisible.
 He rarely left the underworld to go to Olympus or the earth.
 He was not a welcome visitor—unpitying, but just; terrible, but not evil.
 His wife was Persephone (Proserpine) whom he carried away from the earth
and made Queen of the Lower World. He was king of the Dead—not Death (Thanatos) itself.
Pallas Athena (Minerva)
Full-grown and in full armor, she was born from Zeus’s head; no mother carried her.
Protector of civilized life, of handicrafts, and agriculture—she invented the bridle, first tamed
horses for men to use.
 She was Zeus’s favorite child. He trusted her to carry the aegis, his buckler, and
the thunderbolt.
 She is described as grey-eyed or flashing-eyed.
 She is chief of the three virgin goddesses, and is called the Maiden or
Parthenos, and her temple is called the Parthenon.
 She is the goddess of wisdom, reason, and purity.
 Athens is her special city, the olive created by her was her
tree, and her bird is the owl.
Hermes
 He is the son of Zeus and Maia, who was the daughter of Atlas.
 His appearance is more familiar than any other god’s.
 Graceful, swift, winged sandals are on his feet, wings on his helmet,
and on his wand, the Caduceus.
 Zeus’s messenger.
 He is the shrewdest of all the gods and the most cunning;
 He is the master thief, who started stealing before he was a day old.
he stole Apollo’s herds of cattle, but Zeus made him give them back.
He won Apollo’s forgiveness by giving him the lyre, which Hermes had
just invented, making it from a tortoise’s shell.
 He was also the solemn guide of the dead, who led the souls down
to their last home.
 He appears in the tales of mythology more often
than any other god.
Medusa
Pygmalion and Galatea: A Roman Myth
• Pygmalion was a gifted young sculptor of Cyprus who hated women.
• He swore he would never marry. His art was enough for him.
• Nevertheless, the statue he made and devoted all his genius to was a
of a woman. He was bent on forming the perfect woman and
showing men the deficiencies in the kind of women they had to deal
with.
• He labored long and devotedly on the statue and produced a most
exquisite work of art. Lovely as it was, though, he couldn’t quit; he
kept working on it and every day it grew more beautiful. No woman
ever born or any statue ever made was more beautiful. When it was
obvious that nothing else could be added to it, he realized he had
fallen in love with his creation.
• Now, it didn’t look like a statue; no one would have thought it was
ivory or stone, but warm skin, motionless for a second only.
Pygmalion and Galatea: A Roman Myth (continued)
• From that time on, the
women he had scorned had their revenge
because no hopeless lover of a living maiden was ever as miserable as
Pygmalion.
• He kissed her lips; they didn’t kiss back. He caressed her hands, her
face; they were unresponsive. He took her in his arms; she stayed cold
and impassive there. For a time, he tried to pretend, dressing her, and
bringing her gifts, but he wasn’t a child. He couldn’t go on pretending.
• He loved a lifeless thing and he was utterly wretched. Venus spotted
him and his new kind of love. On the feast day of Venus, Pygmalion
was there and dared to pray only that he might find a maiden like his
statue, but Venus knew what he really wanted, and as a sign, the
flame on the altar in front of him leaped up three times, blazing into
the air.
• Pygmalion went home to find his statue standing just as he had left
her. He caressed her only to find that she felt warm. He kissed her
and felt her lips grow soft beneath his. He touched her arms, her
Pygmalion and Galatea: A Roman Myth (continued)
shoulders and the hardness disappeared. It was like watching wax
soften in the sun. He clasped her wrist: blood was pulsing there.
• Venus, he thought. The goddess must have done this. With
unspeakable joy, he put his arms around his love and saw her
smile into his eyes and blush.
• Venus herself went to their marriage, but what happened after that
we do not know, excetp that Pygmalion named the maiden Galatea,
and that their son, Paphos, gave his name to Venus’s favorite city.
Epic
Epic hero = larger than life figure from
history or legend
–
Undertakes a dangerous journey, exhibiting
traits such as courage, loyalty, and honor that are
valued by the society that creates him
– Usually embodies cultural and religious beliefs of the
culture
– Has no superpowers, but is smart and brave and
overcomes his fears to protect friends, families, and
countries
– Warrior who performs tasks that others find difficult
or impossible
“Perseus,” Epic Hero
• Protagonist = main character in a story or hero
• Antagonist = Greek for “against” and “contest”
• The antagonist is the character who goes against
the main character in the story.
• In a myth, the hero is a character who performs
amazing feats in a tale involving supernatural
gods and magic elements.
• Even though in danger, the hero must show
admirable qualities such as courage, loyalty, and
fairness.
“Perseus,” Epic Hero
“Perseus” takes place in a mythological world
populated by Greek gods and goddesses.
Zeus – chief god who has
fathered a number of
human children
Athena – goddess of war and wisdom;
she has no mother, but sprung full-grown
from Zeus’s head
Hermes – the messenger god;
he carries a staff which has the
medical insignia on all doctors’ diplomas