Greek Myth Research Articles

How Did I Get Here?

How Did I Get Here? Speer Morgan How did I get here?" is a recurring question in one of my favorite songs, "Once in a Lifetime" by the Talking Heads. It is an anthem to the uncertainty of human existence that suggests the existential feel of much of this issue. While several post–World War II philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus are called "existentialists," they were less a school than a group of related thinkers stretching back to the nineteenth century. Their ideas are akin but quite individual. They came from an understandable beginning, as late eighteenth-century industrialization created an urban working class. Marx was predictive of existential thought due to the threats to individual freedom that he argued would happen in developed capitalist economies, regardless of the label used by political leaders for their economic systems. It is hardly surprising that after the second devastating great war of the twentieth century, philosophers would write about alienation, absurdity, and the tendency of humans to follow the crowd. If we are not born into a benevolent and inherently meaningful reality, we can create authentic selfhood only through conscious choice and action. Camus's The Myth of Sisyphus describes this as one of the most basic paradoxes of existentialism: While Sisyphus must forever roll and then reroll the boulder up the hill, condemned by the gods to powerless rebellion, he understands his condition; he is fully aware and, in some small way, therefore victorious. Existential thought in general is not a simplistic denial of all combined human effort. We are conscious and free and must live with [End Page 5] personal choice, and with that comes responsibility. We also must participate in collective or joint action to do anything important. Such larger recognitions go back to the early thinkers regarded as existential—Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche—and continue through to the late ones such as Martin Heidegger and Hannah Arendt. Because some sources of mass communication pour out misinformation (a fact acknowledged as early as Nietzsche's time, when newspapers were often notoriously "bought" by political and commercial powers), we must combat it through our own awareness and knowledge. We fight these same battles today. By using Greek myth to exemplify the central paradox in existentialism, Camus shows that its emphasis on choice and present action does not deny previous culture. Literature comes from our struggle to understand reality and deal with human issues such as virtue, malice, death, separation, rites of passage, and epiphany. It is at once mythic and existential. Literary realists such as Charles Dickens sometimes used mythic or fairy-tale-like characters and environments—monstrous bad guys, innocents, impossible odds—with protagonists who are alone in an unfriendly world that includes little human community or status. Whatever they achieve they do themselves, through choice and deed. It is no accident that Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin, three of the important twentieth-century Black American novelists, also shared both existential and mythic approaches to issues of race and the human condition. They lived with the general destructiveness of the twentieth century and the rise of racial discrimination and white supremacy. Like the Invisible Man at the end of Ellison's novel, their protagonists are left trying to turn on as many lights as possible, even if their choices be Sisyphean. The fiction in this issue reveals how the impact and legacy of the past can sometimes create a new and disorienting present. Devin Murphy's story of boyhood friendship, "Reclamation," is a tale of two boys living near the shore of Lake Erie whose friendship is built on the fact that both are partial outcasts who have problems at home. A death and shared secret sever their friendship. Years later, the protagonist tries to revisit the place where they grew up and reconnect with his childhood friend. What happens leads him to reconsider the past and adopt a new openness to the present. [End Page 6] Kristen Iskandrian's "Picnic, Ocean, Hatred" is a story of two days, twenty years apart. For two decades, since the accidental drowning of her preteen daughter, Iskandrian's protagonist, Katie, has...

Opening the Box of Suffering, Unleashing the Evils of the World’: Pandora and her Representation in Nineteenth-Century American Poetry

Nineteenth-Century American writers endeavored to establish a distinct literary tradition away from the dominant European canon, particularly after the War of Independence. They found in their new environment and local color a source of inspiration. Still, they also drew on Greek myths to comment on social issues and to frame their works within these legendary realities that are noted for their universality and aesthetic nature. For instance, rewriting and allusions to the myth of Pandora and her box can be found in the poems composed by both male and female American poets of the time. This research deals with the use of this myth in selected poems by Nineteenth-Century American poets, namely Emily Dickinson’s “Hope Is the Thing with Feathers”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Masque of Pandora”, Samuel Phelps Leland’s “Pandora’s Box”, and Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson’s The New Pandora. It aims at investigating the difference in the use of this sexist myth in the writings of these male and female poets.

The Intertextual Use of Greek Mythology in Agatha Christie’s Detective Fiction

This study investigates the intertextual use of Greek mythology in Agatha Christie’s short stories Philomel Cottage, The Face of Helen, and The Oracle at Delphi, a short story collection The Labours of Hercules, and a novel, Nemesis. The results of this research based on the hermeneutical and comparative methods reveal that A. Christie’s intertextual formula developed over time. In her early works, allusions were based on characters' appearances and functions as well as on the use of motifs and themes from Greek myths. Later on, she turned to using allusory character names; this would mislead her readers who thought they already knew the formula of her stories. Although not a postmodern writer, A. Christie enjoyed playing games of allusion with her readers. She wanted them not only to solve a case but also to discover and interpret the intertextual references.

Revision as Relation: Adapting Parable in Chigozie Obioma’s The Fishermen

Abstract This essay explores the connection between adaptation and parable in Chigozie Obioma’s debut novel The Fishermen (2015). Obioma’s adaptation of parable revises this narrative form as radically relational. This revision of parable is tied to an equally relational understanding of adaptive processes. Using parable as the frame for its complex mixture of Igbo and Yoruba mythology, Biblical stories, and Greek and Roman myth, among others, enables the novel to reinterpret all these sources in the context of postcolonial Nigeria. This process thereby challenges the belief that we can dispel colonial power structures by simply rejecting canonical stories and their discursive frameworks and it suggests, instead, a notion of identity as relational and transient. Ultimately, the novel proposes an ethics of relationality that can help to re-assess processes of revision and their political and cultural impact.

Ex arches: Looking Back at Greek Myths of Origin

<i>Ex arches:</i> Looking Back at Greek Myths of Origin

La reescritura del Himno homérico a Deméter en “Ira Demetrae” de Claribel Alegría

En este artículo analizamos el poema “Ira Demetrae” de Claribel Alegría como renovación del género de los himnos. Delimitamos su relación con el relato proporcionado por Robert Graves en Los mitos griegos, y lo confrontamos con las fuentes antiguas, especialmente el Himno homérico a Deméter, el Himno II de la colección de Himnos homéricos, para buscar cuáles son las particularidades e innovaciones de la relectura de Alegría. Para ello, especificamos qué personajes y contenidos ha escogido la poeta, qué imágenes y detalles ha empleado, y qué objetivos ha alcanzado a través de ellos. Además, contextualizamos este poema en la obra de Claribel Alegría, buscando temas comunes. Esto nos permite ofrecer una visión completa sobre la tradición que renueva este poema, en el que hasta ahora no se ha detenido la crítica.

The Dragon: Fear and Power

The “Fear and Power” of dragons is the focus of Martin Arnold's extensive analysis of European and Norse dragon myths. Utilizing Levi-Strauss's theory of structuralism, the majority of the book examines multiple dragon myths from the Greeks to Westeros. Within the structuralist framework, the conflict between Nature and Nurture (culture) is identified as the foundation of human understanding of the chaos of nature versus the control by humanity (culture).Arnold describes Germanic, Celtic, Greek, and Norse dragon myths in detail.Arnold provides one chapter concerning dragon myths from China, Japan, and other Asian cultures. These are probably the oldest dragon myths in human (pre)history except for Ti'amat in the Middle East who is mentioned in the chapter on “Dragons and Saints' Lives.” Identification of additional sources for some of the myths would add substance to his arguments.Arnolds' work fits well within the European and Norse dragon mythology but does not accurately present dragon myths from other continents. For example, the Piasa dragon of Illinois is considered to be a European transplant placed into North America. No local Indigenous groups have such a myth. The Australian bunyip is more human-faerie than a dragon. Rainbow serpents are an integral element of the Dreaming, a philosophical underpinning of many Australian Aboriginal cultures, not to be confused with myths of snakes or monsters in African or Micronesian cultural systems. Dragon myths exist on every continent that humans inhabit. More inclusive detailed summaries covering myths around the globe would add to the content of the book.Arnold's analysis includes conclusions that generalize beyond the data of European/Norse myths. For example, there “always have been and always will be wars” (p. 277) is not substantiated by archaeology. The political formation of the state was motivated by war, but not tribal or band level political organizations, engaged in raids, not warfare.From a structuralist point of view, Arnold's conclusions are well grounded. A holistic perspective with extensive data from archaeology and ecological sources would expand the survey and encompass a more global understanding of dragons and their power for humans to understand the unknown.All in all, Arnold's conclusions that dragon myths are human answers to our fear of the unknown are likely to be agreed with by the majority of mythologists. The book is of particular interest to all who are fascinated with European/Norse myths of dragons.

The Family of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry and Myths

The Family of Zeus in Early Greek Poetry and Myths In early epic poetry it is evident that certain differences exist in both traditions, mainly due to the fact that Homer’s epic poems were written on the western coast of Asia Minor and the surrounding islands, while Hesiod’s poems were composed on mainland Greece. From the analysis, it becomes clear that the development of the cult of an Indo-European Sky Father differs significantly from the assumed Proto-Indo-European tradition. His family is completely different from that in the Indo-European tradition. His wife is the goddess Hera, whom Homer calls ‘old’, as opposed to the Hesiodic tradition, in which Hestia and Demeter are older than her. Homer makes no mention whatsoever of Hestia. The ‘daughters of Zeus’ are the goddesses Athena and Aphrodite, and the ‘son of Zeus’ is Apollo. The family of Zeus according to Homer also differs from the archaeological findings of the tradition on land. Hera of Samos bears no resemblance to Hera of Argos. The oldest large temples are connected to her, as well as to the memory of Oceanus and Thetis as parents to the gods, which is a direct influence of the Mesopotamian myths of Apsu and Tiamat. Homer’s Zeus from Mount Ida, Hera of Samos, Apollo of Cilla, and Tenedus and Artemis of Ephesus are closer to the Anatolian tradition.

The Summer Triangle and the Stymphalian Birds

In western celestial cartography there is a grouping of three birds which are the constellations of Cygnus the Swan, Aquila the Eagle, and Lyra the Lyre, all found north of the ecliptic. Within each constellation, the three bright stars of Deneb Adige in Cygnus, Altair in Aquila, and Vega in Lyra constitute what is known today as the Summer Triangle, as they are visible in the summer months and form a triangle in the night sky. Rather than just a geometrical pattern, however, this essay argues that there is a myth that draws these three magical birds together. Using extant works of art, as well as the writings of Apollonius Rhodius (Argonautica 2, c.3rd century BCE) and Pseudo- Hyginus (Fabulae 30, c.2nd century CE), amongst others, this essay focuses initially on the Greek myth of the three Stymphalian Birds (Ornithes Stymphalides) which haunted Lake Stymphalis in Arkadia and suggests that, by searching within other myths, there are alternate ways that these three sky birds may have been understood through other cultures.

The Wings of Atalanta: Essays Written along the Color Line

The Wings of Atalanta: Essays Written along the Color Line

“This is not about love, this is about guilt and terror”: Phaedra Backwards (2011) and forwards by Marina Carr

ABSTRACT Marina Carr’s relationship with the Greeks has been acknowledged in her Midlands tragedies and Ariel (2002). However, Phaedra Backwards (2011), one of her latest versions of a Greek myth, has not yet received the critical attention it deserves. This analysis aims to view Carr’s play as an example of an adaptation that constitutes a valuable contribution to the corpus of Irish versions of Greek tragedies; the discussion also intends to consider to what extent Carr is close or departs from the classical myth and what are the implications of this for the main protagonist. Whether the play is a feminist adaptation of Euripides, in terms of the major themes it represents – the representation of women, their agency and search for identity – and the transformation of mythological figures such as the Minotaur are other questions that will be addressed. A revision of Phaedra’s previous stories, from Euripides to contemporary accounts, unveils the new meanings acquired as the myth travels in time and confirms that Phaedra Backwards is a revision of the classical myth where the changes of time constitute the spaces for adaptation in which the background stories reconstruct and announce the future of the myth.

From Grief to Superbia: the Myth of Niobe in Greek and Roman Funerary Art

The Greek myth of Niobe was known in the ancient world both by literary sources and visual representations. Both in Ancient Greece and in Ancient Rome, the myth was represented, alongside a variety forms of art, in funerary art, but in a different manner during each period of time. In Ancient Greece, the myth was represented on Apulian and South Italian vases, portraying the finale scene of the myth: Niobe’s petrification. In Ancient Rome, a shift is visible: the portrayal of the scene of the killing of Niobe’s children on sarcophagi reliefs. The aim of this paper is to follow the iconography of each culture and to understand the reason for the shift in representation, while comparing the two main media forms.

Why Does God Get It Wrong?

Jewish texts, both Biblical and post-Biblical, depict the Divine as fickle, fallible, imbued with human characteristics. This article attempts to establish a typology of Divine fallibility, categorising examples and seeking to explain them through literary and theological- anthropological lenses. Somewhat similar trends are seen in Ancient Greek myths about the behaviour and interactions of Greek gods, who are shown betraying, plotting against and envying each other just as humans do. The article explores the literary possibilities of a polytheistic system – where deities can display fallible pettiness among their own while maintaining a front of infallibility in their interactions with humankind – over a monotheistic system.

Modified Phraseological units with a Mythonym Component in English Media

The article is devoted to studying the types of modifications of phraseological units with mythological allusions. The functions performed by them in the English discourse are characterized. The relevance of the study is due to the insufficient knowledge of intentionally modified precedent units - phraseological units with a mythological component - and the specifics of their functioning in the discursive space of the English language. The novelty of the study is seen in the explicitation of the modifications (transformations) classification of precedent units in relation to phraseological units containing mythonyms that refer to ancient Greek myths. The author identifies three main modification types of the precedent units of phraseological units with a mythonym component: semantic, structural-lexical and syntactic. Particular attention is paid to identifying the functions of modified phraseological units in multi-discourse English texts. It is shown that the modification of the considered precedent units allows the author of the statement to originally identify the situations and events illuminated by him (the qualifying function of the modified phraseological units), give the text expressiveness and brightness (expressive-decorative function), convincingly express his point of view (persuasive function), convey irony or create humorous effect through a language game (human function), identify their group affiliation (password function).

Riscrittura femminile del mito nella poesia di Wisława Szymborska

Within the work of Wislawa Szymborska the poems inspired by myth (classical and biblical) are a small part, yet they are particularly significant if one looks at them through the perspective of deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction. In particular, we can observe the author’s tendency to re-read, and then re-write, the myth from a female point of view. From the earliest collections Szymborska deals with the Greek myth, linked in particular to Troy, to throw a different light on it: Cassandra is not only the seer who is destined to be constantly pushed away and feared, but she also represents the possibility of an affirmation of diversity (as a seer, and as a woman) as she becomes aware of the importance of her own function. In the poem entitled A Paleolithic fertility fetish , the author refers to the statue of the Venus by Willendorf to evoke the era of the Great Mother and observe how the effects of her presence, fortunately, are still accessible to the human beings. More deeply, the reference is directed towards a time when the main goddess was at the center of a peaceful system based on the natural cyclicality of things. The biblical myth of Lot’s wife is also revisited through a distinctly feminine perspective. Lot’s wife, in Szymborska’s imagination, after investigating its multiple causes, turns to Sodom as an extreme gesture of rebellion. In one of her most recent texts, the author (through the lyric subject) finally dialogues with Atropos, who on the one hand highlights her devotion to the “work” of reaping human lives, but on the other expresses her own regret for the system where he is a victim of displacement of the divine hierarchies towards the masculine gender.

Мифопоэтическая структура книги Елены Шварц «Литературные гастроли»

This paper analyses Helena Shvarts’s book of short stories Literary Tours (2000), the origin and functional patterns of mythopoetic intertexts there in the paradigm of specific Russian Women’s fiction in the context of postmodern ethics and aesthetics: like other contemporary women-writers, Shvarts utilizes intertextuality and myths, biblical symbols and cultural code to be recognized by attentive readers. Fiction and non-fiction are overlapped in these memoirs which is typical of Russian Women’s writing as well, so episodes from the author’s own biography could be a fruitful soil for investigation the Myth as it is, in which oriental and western traditions and philosophies are intertwined. In Helena Shvarts’s poetic conception of the world a cross-cultural dialog between different types of civilizations (East and West) or/and archaic resources of modern European mentality had always been a fundamental basis of the narrative. Literary Tours represents a multileveled cultural utopia, in which Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian, Scandinavian and Taoist myths not only coexist peacefully in consciousness of a Poet as a representative of Gods, but also have an influence on the modern reality.

La crisis constructiva del sueño europeo en Metrópolis, de Fritz Lang. Un estudio contextual comparado de los mitos de Prometeo y Atlas

Metrópolis de Fritz Lang es una película de enorme complejidad que casi cien años después de su estreno sigue provocando polémica en torno a las posibles interpretaciones ideológicas que propone. En este artículo, se estudia la película en paralelismo con otros usos ideológicos que se hicieron de los mismos mitos clásicos y bíblicos en ese contexto histórico. Especialmente aporta mucha luz sobre el complejo significado de Metropolis la comparación con el proyecto iconográfico del Rockefeller Center de Nueva York, que sigue una estética similar y hace también un uso simbólico de los mitos clásicos de Prometeo y Atlas que aparecen en la película. Sin embargo, mientras que Metrópolis supone una cierta premonición distópica -y preventiva- de la crisis del sueño europeo que presagiaba, por ejemplo, el uso simbólico que de esos mismos mitos se hacía entonces tanto en la URSS como en la Alemania nazi, el Rockefeller Center simboliza -todavía hoy- el proyecto más utópico del sueño capitalista americano. El estudio comparativo entre estos usos diferentes de los mismos mitos griegos muestra que la película de Fritz Lang -ya superados los prejuicios metodológicos heredados de la guerra fría académica- se nos descubre como una obra de arte abierta, considerablemente universal e intemporal.

Mare magnum: the Romans and the Mediterranean Sea between myth and history in the early Latin epic

This article aims to illustrate the significant presence of images of the sea in the early Latin epic poetry as a mirror of the evolution of Roman society, which was originally founded on land and agriculture. This presence was mainly due to the first Punic War, which took place largely at sea, and was experienced by the poets themselves, Livius Andronicus and Naevius, and subsequently remembered by Ennius. A review of literary passages, which implicitly refer to the Mediterranean, shows (albeit in fragmentary form) the interest in the mare magnum between Greek myth and Roman history, changing from the dramatic representation of the sea as an enigmatic and hostile environment, to that of a pragmatic relationship between man and sea that offered new chances in peacetime and a wider perspective on the world.

Law in stateless societies: scapegoats, curses and punishers in Greek literature

ABSTRACT Rene Girard, influential theorist of sacrifice and victimage, casts Oedipus as a scapegoat, who absorbs the ‘free-floating’ guilt that has plagued Thebes. But is he? Girard’s definitions of the scapegoat and reciprocal violence are established, and then differentiated from the administration of punishment in the stateless societies of ancient Greek myths, using the laws of Zeus and the story cycle of the Oresteia. Practices and attitudes surrounding man-boy sexual and pederastic relationships are reconstructed as they evolved from mythic into historic times in Greece. The larger story of Laius, Pelops, Chrysippus, Oedipus and Jocasta is investigated using scholarship on lost but attested plays as well as mythographic materials. By establishing Laius’s illicit abduction of Chrysippus as the source of guilt, and its treatment in tragedy in historic Athens, Oedipus emerges instead as an unwitting and unwilling agent of punishment in a stateless but not lawless society.

Henrichs. Greek Myth and Religion

Review of Henrichs, A. (2019). Collected Papers. Vol. 2, Greek Myth and Religion. Edited by H. Yunis. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 606 pp.