Clsc 101 Study Guide
What type of literature, from what period of history, constitutes our earliest source
of Greek myths? ANS✔✔ Homer- early 7th Century
Hesoid- end 8th century
Iliad by Homer
Odyssey by Homer
Did the ancient Greeks base almost all of their tragic dramas on myth, or only some
of them? ANS✔✔ All ancient greek tragedies have told a myth (mythical versions
of historical events)
What was the Roman poet Ovid's largest and most influential work based on Greek
myths? ANS✔✔ Metamorphoses
Plus the Heroides- a serious of ficticious letters from famous heroines to their
absent lovers
Do we have any complete works by the earliest Greek mythographers, such as
Pherecydes of Syros? ANS✔✔ Hesiod's complete works of the Theogony and Works
and Days.
Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey
Did Greek philosophers ever create myths, themselves, or did they only critique
myths? ANS✔✔ Greek Philosphers were questioning the myths but they never
created them (as far as we know)
What is a "rationalizing" explanation of a myth? What is an "allegorical"
interpretation of a myth? How are rationalization and allegorizing similar? How are
they different? ANS✔✔ To rationalize a myth means to try to make sense of it and
figure it out technically and scientifically speaking.
Allegory is a word that has a number of specific meanings, but in Greek it is used
rather generally to mean that, beneath the apparent meaning of a story is
concealed another, more important meaning.
,What are our sources for what we know about Greek myth, other than literary
remains? ANS✔✔ Artistic: sculptures, vase paintings, coins, drawings temples
statues
inscriptions written on stone or other durable material
How did so many of the ancient Greek myths become lost to us forever? ANS✔✔
The stories were copied repeatedly by hand, which was a very lengthy process.
During this process errors would occur and the translation resulting in fragments
from the works. Many works were lost when scribes thought they were not worth
copying.
Who was the first person (that we know of) to write that Achilles was invulnerable
except for his heel? When did he write? ANS✔✔ Statius in the 1st century A.D.
Statius was the first ancient author to mention this story he wrote it 1000 years
after the time of Homer
How do we know the plots of the lost epic poems of the Trojan Cycle? ANS✔✔
chrestomathy: work that summarizes the events that take place in each epic by an
unknown Proclus has summarized them in the 5th century AD
What is a σχόλιον (scholion)? How are σχόλια (scholia) important for the study of
ancient Greek myths? ANS✔✔ Scholars added notes to texts called scholia. these
notes explained elements of a story that were hard to understand, or they
mentioned interesting or alternate versions. This is the only way some of the stories
survived.
Basically, what is a "myth"? ANS✔✔ A story or narrative or allusion to a narrative
that may exist in more than one version or a grand series of elevated characters
having a formal quality that expresses what is important to people of that conveys
some sort of ethical doctrine (moral lesson) or that deals with the fundamental
realities of human experience and does all of this and succeeds in becoming
traditional.
What does the word "myth" often imply in English, that the word μῦθος (mythos)
only occasionally implies in Greek ANS✔✔ Hard to believe stories
Word speech story
mythos is a fable
, Why are there often so many irreconcilable versions of individual myths? Did that
situation bother the ancient Greeks ANS✔✔ There are so may versions of one
myth because of the passing of the stories from generation to generation. People
modify myths to fulfil a different purpose. So no, it didnt bother the ancient Greeks.
Why are ancient retellings of myths so often puzzling or cryptic to modern readers
ANS✔✔ Its probably because of the translation of ancient language, also things
may be left out because things were seen as common knowledge in the ancient
times.
Who was Euhemerus of Messene? What is "euhemerism"? ANS✔✔ The third
century BCE Greek writer Euhemerus of Messene composed a utopian travel
narrative entitled Sacred Inscription where he articulated a theory, known as
euhemerism, regarding the origin of religion. The theory maintained that all
Olympian gods were deified prominent kings and later scholars made use of it as a
justification of divine kingship in the Graeco-Roman world. Euhemerism managed to
survive in the early Christian era as a theory that represents the falsity of the gods
of the pagans. From a theory of myth to a theory of religion and from a less
important element of Euhemerus' utopian narrative to mere historiography,
euhemerism has managed to preserve itself in scholarly discussions without the
existence of a comprehensive examination of the theory from a religious studies
perspective and the way it was used in later periods. Based on the various and
divergent usages and applications of euhemerism both in historical studies and in
theoretical discussions on religion, the question remains: What is euhemerism?
Makes an assumption of reality.
According to Diodorus Siculus, where did the Atlantians live, and what role did
Uranus play in the history of the Atlantians? ANS✔✔ The Atlantians are an ancient
civilization at the edges of the world that have neighbored the Amazons and the
Gorgons. Uranus was the first king to rule among them and gathered together the
poeple, who lived scattered, into the compass of the city.
Who is Gaea, the Mother of All? What is Uranus to her? ANS✔✔ Mother earth
Gaea mates with Uranus her son and later husband and lover and has 12 children
called the .
Who were Hyperion and Euryphaëssa? What do their names mean? Who were Eos,
Selene and Helius? ANS✔✔ Children of Gaea part of the titans
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