The Nature of Myth:

• Maurizio, Chapter 1
  • Key Names & Terms:
    • terms: legends, folktales, mythological corpus
    • Archaic Age: Homer (Iliad, Odyssey), Homeric Hymns, Hesiod Theogony, Works & Days
    • Classical Age: Tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides), Herodotus, Plato, Palaephatus
    • Hellenistic Age & Roman Period: Plutarch, Ovid, Virgil, Catullus

Creation:

• Maurizio, Chapter 2
  • Key Names & Terms:
    • authors & Works: Hesiod, The Theogony, The Works & Days; Homer
    • places: Mycenae, Ascra, Olympia
    • terms: panhellenism
    • Names: Chasm, Earth, Tartarus, Eros, Heaven, Kronos, Titans, sickle, Aphrodite, Zeus
    • Theogony: Rhea, Kronos, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Zeus, Poseidon, Olympus, Holy Pytho (i.e. Delphi), stone, thunder & lightning
    • Theogony: Zeus, Prometheus, Heracles, Pandora, Kronos, Olympus, lightning, Typhoeus, Metis, Athena
    • Hebrew selection: Genesis, God, Eden, Adam, Eve, serpent, garden of Eden, forbidden fruit, tree of knowledge of good and evil


• Leonard & McClure
  • Key Names and terms:
    • Norse: Prose Edda, Muspell, Niflheim, Audumla, Ymir, Odin, Vili, Ve
    • Mayan: Popul Vu, Quiche, Sovereign Plumed Serpent (~Begetter, Bearer, Maker, Heart of the Sea), Heart of the Sky/Hurricane/Thunder Gods, matchmaker Xpiyacoc
    • Vietnamese: Au Co, Dragon Prince/Lac Dragon, 36th Heaven, earth, sea palace, 4 elements, jadestone
    • Hindu: Vishnu Purana, Maitreya, Parasara, Brahman, Narayan, Prithivi (earth), the yogins, Prasara, boar

Zeus & Hera; floods:

• Maurizio, Chapter 3
  • Key Names & Terms:
    • Zeus: Cronus, Rhea, Athena, Hera, thunderbolt, eagle, Zeus Meilichius, Sarpedon
    • Hera: Cronus, Rhea, Hephaestus, peacock, cow-eyed, Argeia
    • terms: cult
    • Greek passage: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, Zeus, Prometheus, Hephaestus, Power, Scythia
    • Greek flood: Zeus, Pyrrha, Prometheus, Hermes, chest, Parnassos, humans immoral, rocks (laas) = laoi (Gk for people)
    • Near Eastern flood stories: Epic of Gilgamesh, Ea, Gilgamesh, boat, flood=too many/too noisy
    • Hebrew: Genesis, God, Noah & 3 sons, Arc, mountain of ararat, the Altar, rain, dove, bow in the clouds (covenant)


• Leonard & McClure:
  • Key Names and terms:
    • Mayan: Sovereign Plumed Serpent, Hurricane/Thunder Gods, order of creation: animals, mud humans, wood humans, corn & water humans (Jaguar Quitze, Jaguar Night, True Jaguar, Hahucutah)
    • Norse: Odin, Vili, Ask, ash, Embla, elm,

Possible Essay Questions:

Use only the primary material (i.e. the actual stories that we have covered in this unit) in Maurizio's Classical Mythology in Context and in Leonard & McClure's Myth & Knowing and the pdfs in Moodle for the missing lines from Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and for the poetic version of the Big Bang .

• Creation of all:
  • Source material: pdf in Moodle for poetic Big Bang, Ch 2 from Leonard, Ch 2 from Maurizio.
  • Prompt: Compare/contrast two of the following myths with the poetic version of the Big Bang. Myths to choose from: Mayan, Hebrew, Norse, Greek.


• Flood:
  • Source material: Ch 2 & 3 from Leonard, Ch 3 from Maurizio.
  • Prompt: The flood myth has been called a 'restoration of primordial chaos, and the repetition of the cosmogonic act' (Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return, 1954, pp. 57–59)." Examine this idea with regard to at least 3 of the following flood myths (Mayan, Vietnamese, Norse, Hebrew). [Note: Vietnamese—count Au Co's tears as a flood]