CNRS 370 - Midterm

Fables: explicitly fictional; give a moral lesson
Folktakes: Less social importance than myth; no author, reflect concerns of a group
Fairy tales: similar to folk takes, but have a particular concern with the fairy world
Legends: thought to have a historical basis
Saga: Heroic deeds of a figure; epic in prose form

1) Oral narratives: folktake, fairy tale, fable, legend, saga, epic; no distinctive author (except saga); oral AND traditional

2) Written narrative: primarily in our culture

Mesopatamian myth
Gilgamesh: human/god mix who rules Urduk
Utnapishtim: character who has flood narrative and becomes immortal; visited by Gilgamesh
Enkidu: wild man of Mesopatamia; fights G. and they become BFFS. Eventually dies after killing a bull. Sleeps with priestess for 7 days/nights (Creation)
Ishtar: goddess of love, scorned by G., sends Bull of Heaven

G realizes his own mortality and goes to U, ultimately fails; immortality gained through myth

Babylonian Creation Epic
cosmogony & anthropogony
Marduk fights Tiamat and defeats her to become the head God; kills her lover and uses his blood to make humans (her body cut in 2 make sky & earth)
Annual ceremony to celebrate this + hieros gamos

Sacred Marriage (ritually/ceremonially based I think)

M: masculine & truthful
L: less truthful & tricky

Mnemosyne and her daughters are the 9 Muses (Zeus slept with her 9 times)

Provide divine authority; poets are intermediaries between the gods and humans (eg. Hesiod)

Mediate between the human and the divine

Zeus's war against his father (the Titans)
It is a succession myth

Hubris evoke nemesis (punishment)

Place or person that is a way to communicate with the gods

Apollo is the god, Pythia is the oracle

Ruler who built policy around oralce; lesson in the ambiguity of oracles (a great empire will fall); defeated by Cyrus.

Philosopher
-doubts traditional views of the ogds (epic poets present horrible image of gods)
-humans make gods in their own image