HISTORICAL CRITICS: -Hecataeus of Miletus: "Many are the tales (mythoi) told by the Greeks, and in my view they are laughable." ETYMOLOGY The name is the game: the name of a thing contains the essence of the thing. AETIOLOGY ‘aition’ means ‘cause’ Causes: Why is something the way it is? e.g. "Vestal Virgin" METEOROLOGY Natural phenomena. e.g. Max Müller: sun (Helios & Phaeton), rain (Zeus), lightning (Cyclopes) RITUAL (Demeter at Eleusis) ICONOGRAPHY "eikon" pictures: mythological stories conveyed by visual means, e.g. on Greek vases, on wall paintings.Examples: EUHEMERISM [B. Powell, Classical Myth (2006), p. 678.] ANCIENT PHILOSOPHICAL CRITICISM: -Xenophanes of Colophon: anthropomorphism, ethnocentrism MANA Anthopological interpretations. Spiritual ‘electricity’ ( James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough; Bronislaw Malinowski; H. J. Rose) MOTHER GODDESSES e.g. Robert Graves, The White Goddess; TRIPARTITE FUNCTION THEORY (Indo-European philology: Georges Dumezil, Jaan Puhvel, Emile Durkheim The Division of Labor in Society) STRUCTURALISM bipartite theory (‘bipolar opposites’): Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structuralism; The Raw and the Cooked PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES: -Sigmund Freud (Oedipus complex)
Revised October 16, 2001. 10/26/2001, 2/17/2003, 8/31/2003, 02/07/2004, 07/30/2006
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John Paul Adams, CSUN
john.p.adams@csun.edu