Web7/05/ · Mythology Essays (Examples) results for “Mythology”. ★Recommended Essay Mythology Words: Length: 4 Pages Document Type: WebCreation Myth Essay. Myth still remains one of the major links that merges the different cultures and religions from various ethnicities. “The Creation of the Titans and the Gods”‚ Some myths are accounts of real events. Myths become shifted in time or place and changed by symbolic meaning. Myths can be used to explain local and universal beginnings, also they can sometimes contain supernatural beings. A myth contains a great power of meaning to the culture from which it blossomed. This is the main reason why myths stay around
Mythology Essays: Examples, Topics, Titles, & Outlines
The History of the Term, Related Genres, and a Working Definition. IN THIS ESSAY. You will find an overview of the history of the word myth, discovering that it myth essay a number of legitimate meanings—and a few less-than-legitimate ones, myth essay. Like the word storythe word myth has a myth essay range of sometimes contradictory meanings and connotations. Others do not. While casual, modern usage of the word myth certainly does include such ideas as the primitive, the unreal, myth essay untrue, and the deceptive, a more deeply informed view of this word reveals a richer, more satisfyingly complex picture. How did human beings come to be here and what does that tell us about our ultimate purpose?
What are our proper, myth essay, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values and proper behavior be? Analyzing myth for what it can tell us about how the various peoples of the world have attempted to answer such questions sheds light on that most basic of human activities: that is, the search for a framework through which personal and collective purpose and meaning can emerge. We continue, even myth essay the modern, myth essay, largely secular world, to seek such meaningful frameworks.
We need, every bit as much as the ancients did, belief systems that orient us to our rights and duties in the world. Individuals, communities, and nations continue to look to narratives—stories about origins, about contact with the divine, and about great teachers and leaders of the past—for explanations and exemplars that validate the moral, ethical, and behavioral codes myth essay give them a sense of identity, purpose, and even destiny. Thus, approaching myths reflectively is more than the study of dusty cultural artifacts or a survey of quaint and primitive superstitions from the human past.
The formal study of myth also shines a light inward, revealing to us how we are influenced by the traditional myths of our culture and highlighting the fact that myth-making is an ongoing activity. Ancient Roots of a Modern Word So how is it that the word myth can be used by some to indicate sacred truth while others use it to indicate that which is false or dubious? The answer to this question lies in the early history of the Greek language. That is, they do not seem to have distinguished—as modern readers do—between stories about gods and heroes and other kinds of narratives, myth essay. Over time, a disagreement arose about the origins and value myth essay muthoi the plural of muthos. On one side, were the traditionally religious and poets who claimed these stories were myth essay inspired and should therefore be revered as religious, historical, and political truth.
On the other side of this disagreement were the rationalists—philosophers and early scientists—a new breed of thinkers who were skeptical of all truth claims, including the claims of priests and poets to have direct access to ultimate truth. Early philosophers like Xenophanes and Heraclitus considered myths to be silly stories suitable only for children and the feeble-minded. By contrast, Plato and his followers tended to use the word muthos to signify poetry and imaginative narratives. Not always, but frequently, Plato used the word muthos as myth essay synonym for the fanciful, myth essay, the naïve, or the false. This is because myth, religion, and philosophy are each preoccupied with a special branch of knowledge known as metaphysics.
As any encyclopedia of philosophy will tell you, metaphysical inquiry is concerned with three general questions:. Myth typically addresses such metaphysical questions imaginatively through narratives that enact answers to these questions while philosophy—and the sciences—typically address such questions rationally. That is, philosophy and science base their answers to the above three questions on that which myth essay be observed through the senses and explained in logically consistent, experientially verifiable terms. Poetry and Philosophy: Two Metaphysical Approaches By the fifth century BCE, two well-defined approaches to metaphysical questions had emerged in Greece, myth essay.
In the other, were the philosophers and early scientists who based their metaphysics on closely reasoned argument and careful observations of the material world. This tension between metaphysical approaches should seem familiar. It should be emphasized, however, that poets and rationalists alike use stories to address the great metaphysical questions—both now and in the ancient world. But while Plato was a rationalist, he was not, as so many modern intellectuals are, myth essay materialist. Nor did Plato completely reject the use of imaginative myth essay, so long as they were used in service of philosophy.
This is not to say that Plato lies in order to persuade us to his ideas; rather, myth essay means that he sometimes advanced parables, likely stories, or thought experiments in order to communicate what his rational inquiries led him to conclude about the nature of reality. Leveling a charge that has been made occasionally against art down to our own time, the great philosopher argued that poets manipulate their audiences and present them with cheap imitations of reality which have the effect of making their hearers lazy, fearful consumers of stories rather than active, thoughtful seekers of the truth. Thus, unlike Xenophanes and Heraclitus, Plato does not dismiss all muthoi as lies about the gods or the myth essay superstitions of the ignorant masses. Rather, he redefines muthos in a way that serves his rhetorical, myth essay, ideological, and political purposes.
But, myth is not merely metaphysical truth dressed up in the outlandish clothing of fiction. Myths are, first and foremost, stories—well-crafted specimens myth essay literary art—and while they frequently raise and answer metaphysical questions, we miss the point if we approach them only as a form of metaphysical speculation. Are Myths Merely Bad Philosophy? The poet and the philosopher serve different masters and therefore have different values, myth essay, priorities, and methods. That simply is not what literary art does—as Plato surely knew. While the individual literary artist may care passionately about philosophy and value its approach to the Truth, his or her first allegiance is to the well-told story. Such features of literary art require no special training to be understood and enjoyed and therefore reach people more quickly and more profoundly than even the most elegant proof or carefully phrased theory.
They will know the ostensible cause of the Trojan War. They will be able to tell you the fate that befell Oedipus. This is not to say that mythic truth is powerful and enduring while philosophical truth is weak and fleeting. Nevertheless, myths like all forms of fiction are enduring because they are entertaining and accessible in ways that philosophy and science seldom are. Are Myths Sacred Narratives? If we accept the notion that myths are, first and foremost, stories, we must still determine just what kind of stories they are. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbellthat modern students of myth do not actually study muthoiper se, myth essay.
In short, to study myth as Ellwood defines it, we would have to record and analyze the performances of storytellers and the still-fresh visions of poets, prophets, myth essay, and dreamers. However, not all myths are sacred; and not all sacred stories are committed to writing and therefore they can never be, literally speaking, script -ure. For example, most students, when they hear the word myth think of the epics, poems, and plays of the Greeks and Romans, myth essay. And they are not wrong. It would be perverse to argue that the stories featured in Greek plays about such memorable characters as Orestes, Oedipus, and Clytemnestra are not also myths. Ordinary Greeks and Romans did not read passages from the Odyssey to solemnize religious ceremonies, myth essay.
Various playwrights reworked even fundamental elements of their mythic traditions without fear of being excommunicated for abusing holy scripture, myth essay. While it is true that religious belief and ritual are portrayed accurately, even reverently, in Greco-Roman myth, that fact alone does not make them sacred narratives. In the ancient world, only those stories told by sanctuary personnel during special religious ceremonies were considered sacred, myth essay. In fact, we know almost nothing certain about such sacred narratives because they were considered so sacred that to write them down was blasphemy, and to tell others about them was an offense punishable by exile or death.
These tribes observed strict taboos and traditions dictating how their most important stories might properly be performed. For example, myth essay, some stories could only be told at night, others could only be myth essay during the season between the first killing frost of autumn and the first lightening bolt of spring. These cultures never developed writing systems; but, so far as we can tell, their oral narratives became relatively fixed in terms of plot details, characters, and meaning. In short, some oral myths—as well as some scripture—may properly be defined as sacred narratives.
However, there are a variety of myths, both written and oral, that are not subject to the kinds of taboos and traditions that would define them as sacred. Then and now it has been associated with myth essay entertainment, religious teaching, and metaphysical speculation—sometimes all at once. Our modern sense of the term retains these contradictory ancient meanings and associations. Further complicating the picture, is the fact that nonspecialists tend to use the words myth, folktale, legend, saga, and fable interchangeably. This is understandable because myth essay genres overlap to a significant degree; however, those seeking a more precise definition of myth do well to understand the differences as well as the similarities among these terms.
Folktales Most myth essay would define folklore as the beliefs, traditions, narratives, superstitions, myth essay, proverbial sayings, and arts of a folk group. Families, myth essay, for example, are an oft-studied folk-group; quilters, southerners, and Gulf-Coast shrimpers have also been studied as distinct folk groups. Given the breadth of this definition, it is difficult to imagine a story that could not be classified as a folktale. Surely the stories recounted in myths, myth essay, religious teachings, history books, myth essay, and political speeches, for example, are manifestations of the ideas, myth essay, beliefs, traditions, and proverbial sayings myth essay such large folk groups as the Americans or the Japanese.
And, indeed, the Journal of American Folklore routinely publishes articles and reviews books on myth, an indication that American folklorists, as a professional group, consider myth to be a subset of their discipline. Legends The term legend has proven easier to define than folktale because it refers to a myth essay more specific kind of story. Most specialists would define legends as stories that have traditionally been accepted as true accounts of historical events, but which actually combine elements of fact and fiction. The stories of King Arthur, for example, myth essay, are most properly classified as legends because there is evidence for an historical Arthur around myth essay such fictional materials as the Sword in the Stone, the Round Table, and the Tale of the Green Knight myth essay accumulated over the centuries.
Myth essay the extent that the Iliadfor example, myth essay based on actual battles between Mycenaean Greeks from the mainland and the so-called Trojans inhabiting a city on the coast of Anatolia modern-day Turkeymyth essay, this epic could also be considered a legend, myth essay, or a myth incorporating legend, or, myth essay, even, a work of fiction based on a legend. In fact, most Greeks and Romans in the ancient world accepted the Trojan War as historical fact and its heroes as actual persons, a fact that further justifies classifying the Iliad as a legend.
Sagas Sagas are stories or cycles of stories that recount the exploits of a hero or follow a particular family through several generations. In Norse myth, Saga is the goddess of the literary arts and our modern term for narratives of this kind derives from her inspiration of such Norse and Icelandic literature as the EddasThe Volsung Sagaand The Vinland Sagas. Typically, the stories constituting a saga are chronological and myth essay. That is, they follow the story of a hero or a family as it develops over time, with the later episodes building on events occurring in earlier episodes. Driven mad by Hera, Hercules murders his wife and children. When he returns myth essay his senses, he is overcome by guilt and grief.
Eventually, Apollo tells him the only way he can atone for this terrible deed is to serve Eurystheus, the king of Tiryns and Mycenae, for twelve years. Eurystheus is no friend of Heracles. Accordingly, the king assigns the great hero twelve seemingly impossible tasks which Heracles nevertheless accomplishes with occasional help from Athena and Apollo, myth essay. Märchen Yet another myth-related genre is the märchen pronounced MEER-shinmyth essay, or what is more commonly called a fairy tale. All of the characters in a märchen are fictional and may include not only human beings but also talking animals, monsters, ghosts, and witches. While these stories are told primarily to entertain, they often feature moral lessons and reinforce socially acceptable behaviors and attitudes.
Jack, before climbing the beanstalk, myth essay, is berated by his mother for being gullible and disobedient, myth essay, two socially unacceptable qualities. Eventually, he travels to the land of the giants and returns with valuable treasures that he gives to his mother, demonstrating bravery and respect for his mother—two socially acceptable qualities. Fable, Parable, and Allegory Fables, parables, and allegories are literary forms that encourage readers and listeners myth essay look beneath the literal level of the narrative for secondary—and more profound—meanings. Today, myth essay, the term myth essay typically refers to short narratives featuring animals that speak and act like humans and which usually conclude with an explicit moral.
The parables of Jesus in the New Testament are particularly well-known examples of this form. He likens his own parables to seeds, myth essay, some of which fall on the road, myth essay, some on rocky soil, some among thorns, and some on well-tended soil.
The myth of Pandora’s box - Iseult Gillespie
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