THE ORIGIN OF MYTH

Theory One = Written Sources

1. Iliad and Odyssey (700 BCE)

2. Theogony by Hesiod

3. Homeric Hymns (33)

4. Odes by Pindar (518-428 BCE)

5. Tragedians

Aeschylus (525-456 BCE)

7/90 extant

Oresteia (trilogy)

Sophocles (496-406 BCE)

180 plays

Trilogy: Antigone, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus

Electra

Euripides (485-406 BCE)

19 extant

Bacchae

Medea

6. The Histories by Herodotus (5th C BCE)

7. Poems by Callimachus (3rd cent. BCE)

8. Argonautica by Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd cent. BCE)

4 books--5,835 hexameter lines

9. Library by Apollodorus (180-120 BCE)

10. Aeneid by Virgil (70 - 19 BCE)

11. Metamorphoses by Ovid (43 BCE - 17 CE)

12. Lives by Plutarch (50-120 CE

13. Description of Greece by Pausanias (mid 2nd cent CE)

Second Theory = a sort of communication system and social need for mythic heroes

STUDYING GREEK MYTHS

1. Myth and Ritual

James George Frazer: The Golden Bough

Jane Ellen Harrison: Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion (1903)

2. Psychological Approaches

Sigmund Freud: The Interpretation of Dreams

Carl Jung

Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

3. Sociological Approaches

Emile Durkheim

Bronislaw Malinowski

4. Comparative Mythology

Max Muller

Georges Dumezil

5. Contemporary Issues

Marija Gimbutas (feminism)

Martin Bernal (black studies)


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