Transcript Classics 430 C Greek and Roman Mythology

Classics 430 C
Greek and Roman
Mythology
Alexander Hollmann
https://canvas.uw.edu/cours
es/1039206
Leda and the Swan.
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (or follower of)
c. 1512-1517
Greek and Roman Mythology
• What are the aims of this course?
• Why study Greek myth? (What about the
Roman stuff, btw?)
• What can I expect to get from this course?
• What do I have to do for this course?
• How will I be tested?
What is myth?
Term comes from ancient Greek muthos:
1. “an utterance”: e.g. Homer, Iliad 1.25 Agamemnon to Chryseus:
“and Agamemnon addressed a mighty muthos to him: ‘Let me not find you among the
hollow ships, old man…’
2. more specifically “a narrative, account”: e.g. Homer, Odyssey 3.94 Telemachus asks
Nestor “…if perhaps you have heard a muthos [about Odysseus] from another
wanderer”
3. A tale from or of the past: e.g. Plato, Republic 330d “You know well, Socrates, when
someone thinks he is close to death, fear and concern about things he has not thought
about before come to him. The muthoi told about things in Hades (the underworld) …
now torment his soul, lest they perhaps be true..”
4. A tale from or of the past that is not literally true: e.g. Plato, Republic 377a: “So one
should educate a child with both types of speech [the true and the false], but first with
the false?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Don’t you know that we first tell children muthoi? And this is, so to say, generally
falsehood, but there is some truth in them too.”
Myth distinguished from other
tales/stories?
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Saga and legend (historical core?)
Folk tale (magical element?)
Fairy tale (Märchen)
Ultimate impossibility of determining what is
myth on the basis of content
• Note that the Greeks had many words for
myth besides muthos: logos
• We have to use context
How do we get myth?
• Idea of Greek song culture, local traditions vs
panhellenic [found and known in the entire
Greek world] versions
• Poetry (epic [e.g. Homer, Hesiod], lyric, choral)
• Drama (e.g. Aeschylus, Euripides)
• Prose (including ancient mythographers, travel
writers [e.g. Pausanias])
• Images (sculpture, painting)
Jason and the Dragon, with Athena
This particular version of the myth, where Jason is swallowed by the dragon
that guards the Golden Fleece and then regurgitated with the help of Athena,
is not found in any written version known to us.
5th c. BCE Athenian red-figure kylix (wine cup) found in Etruria (Italy)
No one myth of X
• Why can’t we say there is just one myth of X?
• Variants (e.g. children of Medea: killed by
citizens of Corinth, killed by Medea herself:
both acceptable variants, what seems
important is that they are killed)
• What’s in common between them? What
makes it still a myth of X?
• Who determines whether it is part of the
myth or not?
Myth is a traditional tale/story
• What does “tradition” mean?
• Can you make up a myth? Is new myth
possible?
• Is there a “wrong” version of a myth?
• Myth needs community
Myth and tradition cont’d
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Is myth “true”?
Does myth have to be “true”?
Does myth have to be “untrue”?
How does “muthos, myth” end up meaning
“an untrue story”?
• See the Muppet Movie (1979)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fMICrB
Hs34, scene starting at 1 min 30 sec
An attempt at a definition
• W. Burkert, Structure and History in Greek
Mythology. Berkeley 1979.
"Myth is a traditional tale with secondary,
partial reference to something of collective
importance." (23)
Another: from G. Nagy, Greek
Mythology and Poetics
• "Myth, in societies where it exists as a living tradition,
must not be confused with fiction, which is a matter of
individual and personal creativity. Rather, myth
represents a collective expression of society, an
expression that society itself deems to be true and
valid. From the standpoint of a given society that it
articulates, myth is the primary reality. … myth can be
defined as a 'traditional narrative that is used as a
designation of reality.' Myth is an applied narrative.
Myth describes a meaningful and important reality that
applies to the aggregate, going beyond the individual."
(8)
Back to muthos as “utterance”
• R. Martin, The Language of Heroes.
muthos (in Homer and Hesiod) =
an authoritative speech act.
A public discourse of authority, which may
(but does not have to) involve an imaginative
traditional narrative.
What do myths mean? Can we
interpret them? How do they mean?
• "Myths are multivalent: the same myth may be
applied to nature or history, to metaphysics or
psychology, and make some sense in each field,
sometimes even striking sense, according to the
predilections of the interpreter; but the very
plurality of applications must caution us; a myth,
qua tale, cannot be pinned down as referring
specifically and immediately to any kind of reality,
to one 'origin' outside the tale." (Burkert,5)
More on the meaning of myth
Ken Dowden, The Uses of Greek Mythology, 22
• "What are Greek myths for? Not to tell history,
only to masquerade as history. Not just to
entertain: they have too much cultural
significance for that."
• "...Greeks did not turn to mythology for guidance
on what to believe and how to live."
• "Myth is not there to state what must be
believed: myth is not dogmatic."
What’s different about Greek myth?
• Actors are mortal men and women or gods or heroes (a
special category of mortals worshipped after their
death)
• Everyone is named (no anonymous characters)
• Every myth is located in a named place (local)
• Mortals shown in myth tend to be from aristocratic
families
• Mostly set in a time that is in the far past (heroic age)
or beyond time (timeless)
• Like all myth, it reflects the cultural values, concerns,
and anxieties of its own culture.