Classics - Test 1 Flashcards
divine myth
stories about the gods that explain in many ways why the world is the way it is
legend
stories that involve heroes and heroines narrate events of human past
folktales
stories with ordinary people/animals as the main characters where the stories justify customary patterns of behavior
etiological tale
- explains the causes that brought he world into existence
- explains why things are and how they came to be
folktale motifs
specific, common recurrence of themes in multiple works across the world that can be recombined indefinitely
Boeotia
ancient Thebes
Attica
ancient Athens
Laconia
ancient Sparta
Greek Dark Age
1200 - 800 BC
- collapse of Mycenaean civilization
- stronger weapons formed
Archaic Period
800 - 480 BC
- renewal of large scale building/trade increase
- founding of Olympic Games
- Greek alphabet (more adapted than invented)
Homer
750 BC
wrote Iliad and Odyssey
Hesiod
700 BC
wrote Theogony
Classical Period
480 - 323 BC
- Attic Tragedy
- Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles
Hellenistic Period
323 - 31 BC
- Apollonius –> Argonautica
Imperial/ Roman Period
31 BC - AD 476
- Vergil (Aeneid)
- Ovid (Metamorphoses)
etymology
original/ true meaning of a word
cognates
words that arise from the same origin
- shared parent language called proto-indo-european
Ancient Greek dialects
Aeolic - Lesbos
Ionic - Athens, Chios, Miletus
Doric - Sparta
Bronze Age
3000 - 1200 BC
- Minoans on Crete
- greek speakers on Greece in 2000 BC
- Linear A - writing left by Minoans
- Linear B - non-alphabetic script deciphered in 1950s by Ventris
- many legends seem to be set in late Bronze Age
pederasty
love for boys
Etruscans
responsible for the adaptation of alphabet
- gave it to romans who passed it to the greeks
Sumerians
people of southern mesopotamia
- created first city-states
Semites
not a united people but more named fro their cultural and linguistic patterns
- Akkadians: reformed the sumerian culture/myths - preserved myths in cuneiform in clay tablets
Hebrews
semitic peoples whose ancestry was traced to Abraham
Hittites
- one of the most powerful and important peoples of late Bronze Age
- controlled Anatolia (1600-1200)
- preserved myths in cuneiform on clay tablets
homeric hymns
orally composed poems (most likely by homer)
cyclic poems
post-homeric epics —> told parts around homers works to fill in gaps w/ illiad and odyssey
influenced greek art and athenian tragedians
choral song
type of poetry used to reflect on the glory/praise an athlete
Aeschylus
tragedy author
- Persians
Sophocles
loved to show the dignity of human beings in conflict with often divine sources
Euripides
said to have showed men as they really were, not how they should be
- celebrated power of emotion over reason
Library of Apollodorus
collection/account of mythical events from the creation to the death of Odysseus
Babylonians
- leader Hammurabi wrote all legal decisions in cuneiform on column (3600 lines)
- fashioned temporary political unity from the scattered city-states in southern mesopotamia
- fell after leader’s death
cuneiform
first known system of markings (first true writing)
easier/more advanced Phoenician syllabary took over (22 syllables, used to record after 1000 BC)
mythography
written collection of myths
Schliemann
(1822-1890)
proved authenticity of homer by excavation
distribution of dialects confirms the broad outline of the dorian invasion legend
allegory
symbolic expression
speaking about one thing in terms of another
Myth and religion
greeks were polytheistic
Greek/roman religion emphasized ritual over correct belief
- myth is not religion but rather small part of the phenomenon
syncretism
mixing or blending of various traditions into one
anthropomorphism
gods have a human form
idolatry
worship of idols
Xenophanes of Colophon
525 BC
philosopher/poet
known for cross culture comparisons that people make god in their own image with their morals
criticized homer/Hesiod that they made gods do immoral things
- thought god was a sphere (perfect in every way)
euhemerism
theory that the gods were once humans
Neoplatonism
people who followed Plato and his theories/ideas
believed in a higher dimension of reality beyond the limits of time and space
- a place where perfection could be achieved
Johann Bachofen
believed that myth reflects the earlier matriarchal era
Sir James Frazer
magic evolves into religion which evolves in into science
- myth explains ritual
Georges Dumezil
Indo-european myths reflect pre-historic, tripartite social structure
1 - kings and priests
2 - warriors
3 - food providers
Branislaw Malinowski
myth serves as a charter and validates social practices
Sigmund freud
myths represent psychological tensions of he human race
Carl Jung
myths symbolically reflect the collective unconscious of the human race
- archetypes
Claude Levi-Strauss
structuralism: traditional story is conveyed by structure relations within the content, not content itself
myth is an attempt to mediate between binary oppositions
-savage vs. civilized
Walter Burkert
- myth is a type of traditional tale
- crystalizes in different structures indifferent contexts
- reflects basic biological or cultural patterns of actions (programs of action)
- hunting customs,,initiation rites
ritual theory of myth
origin of myth is closely related/tied to religious rituals
charter theory of myth
purpose of myth is to serve as a justification for the way things are
Max Muller
saw the allegory of a struggle between sunlight and darkness in every myth
- known as solar mythology
Indo-european comparative mythology
to explain european myths in the same way and discover patterns/original meanings of myth
Paris school of myth criticism
group of gentlemen who found the same school of tough as Levi-Strauss
