Etiological
Bronislav Malinowski
Functionalism: "in every type of civilization, every custom, material object, idea and belief fulfills an indispensable part within a working whole." Myths are charters for social customs and beliefs.
Robert Graves
Ritualism: "True Myth" is the "reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed in public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially" "Myth implies ritual, ritual implies myth, they are one and the same."
Max Muller
Myths refer to "meteorological and cosmological phenomena"
Metaphorical
Sigmund Freud
Myths reflect "people's waking efforts to systematize the incoherent visions and impulses of their sleep world" and hence pertain to suppressed human emotions.
Carl Jung
Myths contain a series of archetypes - traditional expressions of collective dreams of symbols upon which the society has come to depend. Archetypes are behavior patterns, inherited schemes of functioning.
The "collective unconscious" - "the archetypes of behavior with which human beings are born and which find their expression in mythological tales." Universal behavior patterns represented in myths.
Structural
Levi Strauss
Myth is "a mode by which a society communicates and through which it finds a resolution between conflicting opposites." Myths reflect and resolve the binary oppositions upon which the human mind is structured.
Vladimir Propp
Through analysis of 100 Russian folktales came to the conclusion that they had a single, recurrent structure arranged in an unchanging temporal sequence.
Walter Burkert
Combines different ways of analyzing myths. Myths have a "historical dimension" with "successive layers" of development (motifemes) founded on basic biological or cultural programs of action with reference to "something of collective importance" (represented in the myth by universal archetypes).
OUR MAIN LITERARY SOURCES
GREEK:
HOMER: THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY
HESIOD: THEOGYNY AND WORKS AND DAYS
LYRIC POETS: SAPPHO, XENOPHONES, ETC.
TRAGEDIANS:
AESCHYLUS
SOPHOCLES
EURIPIDES
ROMAN:
VIRGIL: THE AENEID
OVID: THE METOMORPHOSIS
LIVY: AB URBE CONDITA
ZEUS OVERTHROWS HIS FATHER CRONOS (SATURN)
Titanomachy = the Olympians vs. the Titans
DEFEATS ANTAGONISTS CREATED BY HIS GRANDMOTHER
Gigantomachy
Typhoeus
THE CREATION OF MORTALS,
who did it and why?
Zeus or Prometheus
Ovid - earth or the "Creator of the Universe"
FIVE AGES OF HUMAN BEINGS (DEGENERATIVE MODEL)
Gold, Silver, Bronze, Heroes, Iron
Ovid omits the age of heroes in his model of degeneration
PROMETHEUS
, ARCHETYPE OF THE CULTURE GOD AND THE HEROIC TRICKSTER
Sacrifice dispute
Theft of Fire
His punishment
PANDORA
, ARCHETYPE OF THE CURIOUS WOMAN
Interpretations of Pandora Myth
The problem of HOPE, why is it stuck in the jar?
THE FLOOD
Deucalion
Pyrrha
GREEK
LATIN
ZEUS JUPPITER
HERA JUNO
DIONYSIOS BACCHUS
APOLLO APOLLO
ARTEMIS DIANA
ATHENA MINERVA
HEPHASTEUS VULCAN
ARES MARS (MARTIAL)
HERMES MERCURY
POSEIDON NEPTUNE
HADES PLUTO (PLUTOCRACY)
HESTIA VESTA
DEMETER CERES (CEREAL)
CRONOS SATURN
Sky God
cf. Mesopotamia
Symbols: Thunder/Lightening bolt and Scepter
Oracles: Dodona and Olympia
(Some) Children of Zeus
Zeus and Hera Zeus and Metis
Eileithyia (Childbirth), Ares Athena
Hebe (youth), Hephaestus
Zeus and Themis Zeus and Mnemosyne
Fates (Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos) The Nine Muses
Zeus and Europa Zeus and Io
Minos, Rhadamanthys, Sarpedon Epaphos
Zeus and Danae Zeus and Leda
Perseus Helen
Zeus and Leto Zeus and Dione
Apollo, Artemis Aphrodite (in Homer)
Zeus and Nemesis Zeus and Semele
Helen (in some accounts) Dionysos
Zeus and Maia Zeus and Teugete
Hermes Lakedaimon
Zeus and Elecktra
Dardanos
Zeus's promiscuity reflects:
Sexual Freedom of males in a patriarchal society (cf. Odysseus)
Wish fulfillment fantasy of inexhaustible virility
Wish to descend from Father Sky
Zeus as a ruler:
Uses diplomacy instead of physical violence (Uranus and Cronos)
Represses Titans, Typheus and Prometheus
Assumes and/or rechannels the powers of Athena, Cyclopes and the 100 handers
Fathers new forces of gods, the Muses, Athena, Justice, The Graces, Heroes
