The Myths/Folklore Blog

The Crash Course videos provided some insights into myths and mythology that I previously had never given any thought to. Theories of myths are something that seems pointless at the surface level – why do we need to understand where/why myths exist? They’re just stories for people to tell one another. However, after these videos, I’ve gotten more of an understanding of the theories and the people who propose them. First off, I thought it was interesting that even during the time when myths were being invented/spread around more so, people were critiquing and analyzing them. Xenophanes was criticizing myths during the Greek period – that myths provided dangerous information, pushing the faults of man over to random gods that people worshiped. Another viewpoint, when looking back to the early time periods, is the belief that myths could be considered rudimentary science. As in, since myths were people trying to explain why things are the way they are in a very un-scientific manner ...

The next set of readings that I did delved mainly into Odysseus dealing with the ghosts of those who are found in Hades after dying. He needed to deal with them in these stories in order to gain a prophesy from Teiresias. This type of thing within a story (an oracle) can lead to some great plot points, especially if they’re crafted in a way as to not give away the entire story, but add some tension to it, dreading what is going to happen in the future. I felt sorry for multiple of the ghosts, mainly Elpenor, who died because he got too drunk to remember where he fell asleep, leading him to plunge to his death from a roof, breaking his neck. This death just seemed pointless except for the fact that now Odysseus had to go back to Circe and gather his body to burn it. The idea of communicating with the dead from our past has some importance, especially when it’s a beloved friend or family member. The emotional significance for the hero of the story when he meets his mother’s ghost is...

This set of readings was a lot more interesting for me this week, especially since I’ve read some of them in the past. It was nice to re-read some of them and get filled in on the areas I didn’t remember as well. Overall, the adventure story that involved life/death along with creatures/gods is something that I love to get caught up in. One thing that I noticed from the stories was that deaths happened a bunch, and Odysseus was somewhat accustomed to it – or he was just really brave. When trapped in the cyclopes cave, men were brutally smashed against the walls/floor and then eaten in front of their friends. For such subject matter, it’s told with such little detail other than “they were dashed against the ground” so the deaths have less impact overall on the reader. The second part of the reading included Odysseus and his men experiencing what Circe could do on her island that they landed on after escaping the island of cyclopes. The imagery of turning men into animals is very st...