CLAS 430 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Homeric Hymns, Flood Myth, Xenophanes
Document Summary
Greek myths explain why things are the way they are (a)etiology = cause or origin: myths explain where things come from. Some of the monsters and creatures can come from nightmares and thoughts. The greeks make the gods mirror its society, similar to other society/cultures. Myths are before writing, but poets retold them and gave the myths their own stamps: hesiod, homer, and ovid are big names along with homeric hymns, ovid was roman and was much later. Anthropomorphic gods = human shaped w/ human behaviors. Xenophanes was a greek thinker who tried to explain why the greek culture created their gods the way that they did. Greek mythology can be compared to mesopotamian, egyptian, and roman myths: greek is similar to mesopotamia in the flood myth, greek and egyptian were really mixed after alexander the great died and a. Whe(cid:374) 2 (cid:272)ultures do(cid:374)"t i(cid:374)tera(cid:272)t, (cid:455)ou (cid:272)a(cid:374) lear(cid:374) a(cid:271)out hu(cid:373)a(cid:374)s i(cid:374) ge(cid:374)eral (cid:271)(cid:455) (cid:272)o(cid:373)pari(cid:374)g the (cid:272)ulture"s si(cid:373)ilarit(cid:455).
