Modern understanding of Greek mythology
The genesis of modern understanding of Greek mythology is regarded by some scholars as a double reaction at the end of the 18th century against "the traditional attitude of Christian animosity mixed with disdain, which had prevailed for centuries", in which the Christian reinterpretation of myth as a "lie" or fable had been retained.[1] In Germany, by about 1795, there was a growing interest in Homer and Greek mythology. In Göttingen Johann Matthias Gesner began to revive Greek studies and a new humanistic spirit. His successor, Christian Gottlob Heyne, worked with Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and laid the foundations for mythological research both in Germany and elsewhere. Heyne approached the myth as a philologist and shaped the educated Germans' conception of antiquity for nearly half a century, during which ancient Greece exerted an intense influence on intellectual life in Germany.[2]
Comparative approaches
The development of
Max Müller applied the new science of comparative mythology to the study of myth, in which he detected the distorted remains of Aryan nature worship. Bronisław Malinowski emphasized the ways myth fulfills common social functions. Claude Lévi-Strauss and other structuralists have compared the formal relations and patterns in myths throughout the world.[3] Evans himself, while studying the Minoan world, drew regularly on Egyptian and Near Eastern evidence for comparison, and the discovery of the Hittite and Ugaritic civilizations has uncovered texts as well as monuments which offer comparative material for ritual and mythology.[6]
Psychoanalytic interpretations
Sigmund Freud put forward the idea that symbolic communication does not depend on cultural history alone but also on the workings of the psyche. Thus, Freud introduced a transhistorical and biological conception of man and a view of myth as an expression of repressed ideas. Dream interpretation is the basis of Freudian myth interpretation and Freud's concept of dreamwork recognizes the importance of contextual relationships for the interpretation of any individual element in a dream. This suggestion would find an important point of rapprochement between the structuralist and psychoanalytic approaches to myth in Freud's thought.[7]
Origin theories
The origins of Greek mythology are an open question. In antiquity, historians such as
The sciences of archaeology and linguistics have been applied to the origins of Greek mythology with some interesting results. Historical linguistics indicates that particular aspects of the Greek pantheon were inherited from
Archaeology and mythography, on the other hand, has revealed that the Greeks were inspired by some of the civilizations of Asia Minor and the Near East.
In addition to Indo-European and Near Eastern origins, some scholars have speculated on the debts of Greek mythology to the still poorly understood pre-Hellenic societies of Greece, such as the Minoans and so-called Pelasgians. This is especially true in the case of chthonic deities and mother goddesses. Historians of religion were fascinated by a number of apparently ancient configurations of myth connected with Crete: the god as bull—Zeus and Europa; Pasiphaë who yields to the bull and gives birth to the Minotaur; agrarian mysteries with a sacred marriage (Demeter's union with Iasion) etc. Crete, Mycenae, Pylos, Thebes and Orchomenus figure so large in later Greek mythology.[21] For some, the three main generations of gods in Hesiod's Theogony (Uranus, Gaia, etc.; the Titans and then the Olympians) suggest a distant echo of a struggle between social groups, mirroring the three major high cultures of Greek civilization: Minoan, Mycenaean and Hellenic. Martin P. Nilsson, Professor of Classical Archaeology, worked on the structure, origins and relationships of the Indo-European languages, and concluded that all great classical Greek myths were tied to Mycenaen centres and were anchored in prehistoric times.[22] Nevertheless, according to Walter Burkert, the iconography of the Cretan Palace Period has provided almost no confirmation of all these theories; nothing points to a bull, sexual symbols are absent and a single seal impression from Knossos showing a boy beneath a sheep is regarded as a scant evidence for the myth of Zeus' childhood.[6]
References
- ^ Robert Ackerman, 1991. Introduction to Jane Ellen Harrison's "A Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion", xv
- ^ F. Graf, Greek Mythology, 9
- ^ a b "myth". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2002.
- ^ D. Allen, Structure and Creativity in Religion, 9
* R.A. Segal, Theorizing about Myth, 16 - ^ a b R. Segal, The Romantic Appeal of Joseph Campbell, 332-335
- ^ a b W. Burkert, Greek Religion, 24
- ^ R. Caldwell, The Psychoanalytic Interpretation of Greek Myth, 344
- ^ "Greek Mythology". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2002.
- ^ C. Jung, The Psychology of the Child Archetype, 85
- ^ R.A. Segal, Theorizing about Myth, 69
- ^ F. Graf, Greek Mythology, 38
- ^ T. Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology, 241
- ^ T. Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology, 241-242
- ^ T. Bulfinch, Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology, 242
- ^ D. Allen, Religion, 12
- ^ H.I. Poleman, Review, 78-79
- ^ A. Winterbourne, When the Norns Have Spoken, 87
- ^ R.A. Segal, A Greek Eternal Child, 64
- ^ M. Reinhold, The Generation Gap in Antiquity, 349
- ^ L. Edmunds, Approaches to Greek Myth, 184
- ^ W. Burkert, Greek Religion, 23
- ^ M. Wood, In Search of the Trojan War, 112