Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold (Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths, 1)

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Painters, poets and philosophers have seen many things in the myth of Sisyphus. They have seen an image of the absurdity of human life, the futility of effort, the remorseless cruelty of fate, the unconquerable power of gravity. But they have seen too something of mankind’s courage, resilience, fortitude, endurance and self-belief. They see something heroic in our refusal to submit.”

Mythos, The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry - Booktopia Mythos, The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry - Booktopia

The Greek myths were initially propagated in an oral-poetic tradition most likely by Minoan and Mycenaean singers starting in the 18th centuryBC; [2] eventually the myths of the heroes of the Trojan War and its aftermath became part of the oral tradition of Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Two poems by Homer's near contemporary Hesiod, the Theogony and the Works and Days, contain accounts of the genesis of the world, the succession of divine rulers, the succession of human ages, the origin of human woes, and the origin of sacrificial practices. Myths are also preserved in the Homeric Hymns, in fragments of epic poems of the Epic Cycle, in lyric poems, in the works of the tragedians and comedians of the fifth centuryBC, in writings of scholars and poets of the Hellenistic Age, and in texts from the time of the Roman Empire by writers such as Plutarch and Pausanias. Bulfinch, Thomas (2003). "Greek Mythology and Homer". Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology. Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-30881-9. Neil Gaiman was asked, after the publication of his book about Norse myths, if he would do another one about a different pantheon and he declined, saying that the Norse mythology was where his heart lay and any work about any other would therefore not be adequate. I firmly believe it's the same with Stephen Fry and Greek mythology (although greedy little bookworm as I am, I do want moremoremore).Dowden, Ken (1992). "Myth and Mythology". The Uses of Greek Mythology. Routledge (UK). ISBN 978-0-415-06135-3. Segal, Robert A. (4 April 1990). "The Romantic Appeal of Joseph Campbell". Christian Century. Archived from the original on 7 January 2007. After the rise of philosophy, history, prose and rationalism in the late 5th century BC, the fate of myth became uncertain, and mythological genealogies gave place to a conception of history which tried to exclude the supernatural (such as the Thucydidean history). [59] While poets and dramatists were reworking the myths, Greek historians and philosophers were beginning to criticize them. [8] a b c Griffin, Jasper. 1986. "Greek Myth and Hesiod" in The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, edited by J. Boardman, J. Griffin, and O. Murray. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-285438-4. p. 80. Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen (1974). The Nature of Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-021783-4.

Greek mythology - Wikipedia

Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their culture, of which mythology, both overtly and in its unspoken assumptions, is an index of the changes. In Greek mythology's surviving literary forms, as found mostly at the end of the progressive changes, it is inherently political, as Gilbert Cuthbertson (1975) has argued. [i] [15] Her mother Damaris howled, shrieked and sobbed. King Aristides patted her hand and wished himself elsewhere. (с) Prometheus (1868 by Gustave Moreau). The myth of Prometheus first was attested by Hesiod and then constituted the basis for a tragic trilogy of plays, possibly by Aeschylus, consisting of Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, and Prometheus Pyrphoros. Erechtheus had Athena as a proxy parent, Gaia as a mother and Hephaestus as a father. Three immortal parents could be regarded as overdoing it (and as boastfulness about their founder on the part of Athenians), but it was not uncommon for mortals to claim one such progenitor. (c) Jung, C.J. (2002). "Troy in Latin and French Joseph of Exeter's "Ylias" and Benoît de Sainte-Maure's "Roman de Troie" ". Science of Mythology. Routledge (UK). ISBN 978-0-415-26742-7.I have done something I've NEVER done before. I've rated a book and rated it 5 stars before finishing! Percy, William Armostrong III (1999). "The Institutionalization of Pederasty". Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece. Routledge (UK). ISBN 978-0-252-06740-2.