Definitions

Question 1

Saga / Legend

Answer 1

Has its roots in historical fact

Question 2

Folktale

Answer 2

Often stories of adventure, sometimes with fantastic brings end heroes who triumph in the end

-primary goal is to entertain

Ordinary men and women, low social status

Victims, persecuted.

Distinctive aspect: motif

Question 3

Fairytale

Answer 3

Particular kinds of folktales

• short, imaginative, traditional tales with high moral and magical content
• usually created for the young
• high moral and magical content

Question 4

Etiological theory

Answer 4

Idea that myth should be interpreted narrowly as an explanation of the origin of some fact or custom

Does not distinguish myth clearly from any other form of expression

Question 5

Euhemerism

Answer 5

Historical allegory
Gods were real people worshipped after death

-opposite of metaphorical interpretation

Question 6

Myth

Answer 6

A classical myth is a story that, through its classical form, has attained a kind of immortality because its inherent archetypal beauty, profundity, and power have inspired renewal and transformation by successive generations

Question 7

Labyrinth

Answer 7

May have originally meant “home of the double ax”

Question 8

Linear B

Answer 8

Clay tablets inscribed with writing found on the mainland, on them were named of familiar deities of classical Greece

Question 9

Etiological

Answer 9

Explains origins of the universe and power of love

Question 10

Divine spirits

Answer 10

Animate nature, usually nymphs

Question 11

Nymphs

Answer 11

Beautiful young girls who love to dance and sing

Often act as attendants to gods and goddesses

Like faeries, long-lived but not necessarily immortal

Question 12

Demigods

Answer 12

Superior kind of human being, limited in their powers

Question 13

Panatheniac festival

Answer 13

Festival celebrated annually to honor Athena Polias, guardian of the city of Athens

• central moment: presentation of the ceremonial robe (peplos) to deck the old, wooden, image of Athena
• sacrifice of hetacombs (100 cattle)

Question 14

Polis

Answer 14

Center of the Greeks’ conception of their identity, ordered their life in almost every way

Question 15

Seer

Answer 15

Prophet whose profession was to recognize and interpret signs that were elicited through sacrifice or as a result of unusual potents

Question 16

Sacrifice

Answer 16

Most significant act in a Greek ritual, gave cohesion to the community

Held at festivals and on occasions when the favor of the gods was needed

Sex of the animal generally corresponded to the sex of the divinity honored

Question 17

Cattle

Answer 17

Most precious and prestigious offerings of the classical period

Question 18

True myth / myth proper

Answer 18

Used for stories primarily concerned with the gods and humankind’s relations with them

Question 19

Antirationalists

Answer 19

Favor metaphorical interpretations, believe that traditional tales hide profound meanings

Question 20

Dream-work

Answer 20

Process Freud founded

-protects sleep and relieves potential anxiety

Condensation, displacement, representation

Question 21

Animus

Answer 21

Male that a woman instinctively harbors within her (archetype)

Question 22

Anima

Answer 22

Female that each man has within him, it is to this concept that he responds when he falls in love

Question 23

Legends focus on..

Answer 23

Great wars, great quests

Staying of monsters, founding of cities

Question 24

Titanomachy

Answer 24

Olympians against Titans

Zeus against Cronus

Question 25

Gigantomachy

Answer 25

Zeus defeats Giants and Typhon