Myths essay

Myths essay

The myths are told and retold with different emphases at different points in history and from the perspectives of different tellers. But they all tell a story of a hierarchy of gods, humans, and nature in which problems arise and choices must be made. Author: Edith Hamilton Myth as a Form of Metaphysics. If you have done much reading about myth, you will have noticed how discussions of the subject frequently also involve discussions of religion and philosophy. This is because myth, religion, and philosophy are each preoccupied with a special branch of knowledge known as metaphysics Apr 11,  · Words: Length: 4 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper #: Read Full Paper. Mythology. The classical myths of Greece and ome have much in common with medieval myths, because ultimately, all myths have elements in common. The Greek and oman myths dwell most often on heroes, Gods, and Goddesses

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The History of the Term, Related Genres, and a Myths essay Definition. IN THIS ESSAY. You will find an overview of the history of the word myth, discovering that it has a number of legitimate meanings—and a few less-than-legitimate ones. Like the word storythe word myth has a wide range myths essay sometimes contradictory meanings and connotations. Others do not. While casual, modern usage of the word myth myths essay does include such ideas as the primitive, the unreal, the 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, 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 myths essay various peoples of the world have attempted to answer such questions sheds light on that most basic of human activities: that is, myths essay, the search for a framework through which personal and collective purpose and meaning can emerge, myths essay.

We continue, myths essay in the modern, largely secular myths essay, 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, myths essay, 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 that 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 myths essay myths of our culture and highlighting the fact that myth-making is an ongoing activity.

Ancient Roots of a Modern Word So myths essay 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. Over time, a disagreement arose about the origins and value of muthoi the plural of muthos.

Myths essay one side, were the traditionally religious and poets who claimed these stories were divinely myths essay 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 myths essay followers tended to use the word muthos to signify poetry and imaginative narratives. Not always, myths essay, but frequently, Plato used the word muthos as a synonym for the fanciful, the naïve, or the false. This is because myth, religion, myths essay, and philosophy are each myths essay with a special branch of knowledge known as metaphysics.

As any encyclopedia of philosophy will tell you, myths essay, 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 can be observed through the senses and explained myths essay 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. In the other, myths essay, 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, myths essay. 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, a materialist. Nor did Plato completely reject the use of imaginative narratives, so long as they were used in service of philosophy. This is myths essay to say that Plato lies in order to persuade us to his ideas; rather, it 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 laughable superstitions of the ignorant masses. Rather, he redefines muthos in a way that serves his rhetorical, ideological, and political purposes, myths essay. But, myth is not merely myths essay truth dressed up in the outlandish clothing of fiction.

Myths are, first and foremost, stories—well-crafted specimens of 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, priorities, and methods.

That simply myths essay not what literary art does—as Plato surely knew. While the individual literary artist may care passionately about philosophy myths essay value its approach myths essay the Truth, myths essay, 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, myths essay. 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 myths essay fiction are enduring because they are entertaining and myths essay 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 myths essay stories they are. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbellthat modern students of myth do not actually study muthoiper se.

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, myths essay, prophets, and dreamers. However, not all myths are sacred; and not all sacred stories are committed to writing and therefore they can never be, myths essay, literally speaking, myths essay, script -ure.

For example, most students, when they hear the word myth think of the epics, poems, and plays of the Greeks and Romans, myths 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, myths essay, and Clytemnestra are not also myths, myths essay. Ordinary Greeks and Romans did not read passages from the Odyssey to solemnize religious ceremonies.

Various playwrights reworked even fundamental elements of their myths essay traditions without fear of being excommunicated for abusing holy scripture. 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, myths essay. In fact, we know almost nothing certain about such sacred narratives because they were considered so sacred that to write myths essay down was blasphemy, and to tell others about them was an offense punishable by exile or death.

These tribes observed strict taboos and traditions myths essay how their most important stories might properly be performed. For example, some stories could only be told at night, others could only be uttered 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, myths essay. Then and now it has been associated with popular entertainment, religious teaching, myths essay, and metaphysical speculation—sometimes all at once, myths essay.

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, myths essay, saga, and fable interchangeably.

This is understandable because these genres overlap to a significant degree; however, myths essay, those seeking a more precise definition of myth do well to understand the myths essay as well as the similarities among these terms. Folktales Most folklorists would define folklore as the beliefs, traditions, narratives, superstitions, myths essay sayings, myths essay, and arts of a folk group.

Families, 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, myths essay, it is difficult to imagine a story that could not be classified as a folktale. Surely the stories recounted in myths, religious teachings, history books, myths essay, and political speeches, for example, myths essay, are manifestations of the ideas, beliefs, traditions, and proverbial sayings of 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 myths essay of their discipline. Legends The term legend has proven easier to define than folktale because it refers to a much more myths essay 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, myths essay, for example, are most properly classified as legends because there is evidence for an historical Arthur around whom such fictional materials as the Sword in the Stone, myths essay, the Round Table, myths essay, and the Tale of the Green Knight have accumulated over the centuries. To the extent that the Iliadfor example, is 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 Turkeythis epic could also be considered a legend, or a myth incorporating legend, or, 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 Myths essay literature as the EddasThe Volsung Sagamyths essay, and The Vinland Sagas.

Typically, the stories constituting a saga are chronological and self-referential. That is, they follow the story of a hero or a family as it develops over time, with the later episodes building on myths essay occurring in earlier episodes. Driven mad by Hera, myths essay, Hercules murders his wife and children.

When he returns to 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 myths essay Mycenae, for twelve years. Eurystheus myths essay 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.

Märchen Yet another myth-related genre is the märchen pronounced MEER-shinor 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, myths essay, before climbing the beanstalk, is berated by his mother for being gullible and disobedient, two socially unacceptable qualities, myths essay.

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, myths essay. Fable, Parable, and Allegory Fables, parables, and allegories are literary forms that encourage readers and listeners to look beneath the literal level of the narrative for secondary—and more profound—meanings. Today, the term fable 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, myths essay, some of which fall on the road, some on rocky soil, some among thorns, and some on well-tended soil.

ESL - How to write a Myth (Brainstorm, writing, etc)

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"What is Myth?: An Essay"

Myth Essay. Words3 Pages. Myth. There once was a god named Perculus, he was one of the three lost gods that were destroyed by Zeus. He was the god of education; he was responsible for teaching all the citizens of Greece the basic ways of living. Once Zeus got into power he was jealous that someone other than himself was teaching the citizens so he sent Myth Essay Examples - Free Research Papers on blogger.com Ancient Greek Mythology. These words of Alan Moore perfectly describe mythology’s’ importance around the world of keeping people’s moral alive. Greek Humanism in Greek Mythology. Pan’s Labyrinth Greek Mythology. Beowulf: between Myth myths. Myths are entertaining stories; they cover the basis from Heroin adventures, tales of heroism, passionate love stories, Monsters, Gods and much more. In their time myths would serve many important functions for the society and culture that believed in them