Lecture 1

Question 1

Aitia

Answer 1

Greek word for cause, root word of etiological

Question 2

Allegory

Answer 2

A sustained metaphor, anti-rationalists view myth as allegory where the details of the story are but symbols of universal truths

Question 3

Anima

Answer 3

The archetypical image of of the female that each man has within him, it is to this concept that he responds when he falls in love

Question 4

Animus

Answer 4

The archetypical concept of the male that a woman instinctively harbours within her

Question 5

Anthropomorphism

Answer 5

The attribution of human characteristics to a god

Question 6

Archetypes

Answer 6

Traditional expressions of collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols on which the society as a whole has come to depend

Question 7

Collective Unconscious

Answer 7

A revelation of the continuing psychic tendencies of society, embraces political and social questions involving the group, Jung believed myths were a projection of this

Question 8

Dreamwork

Answer 8

Used to protect sleep and relieve anxiety, consists of 3 mental activities, condensation of elements, displacement of elements and representation of elements as images or symbols

Question 9

Electra Complex

Answer 9

Based on Electra, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, a psychotic attachment to the father and hostility toward the mother

Question 10

Oedipus Complex

Answer 10

Based on the story of King Oedipus who slew his father and married his mother, the idea that a man directs his first sexual impulses towards his mother and his first impulses of hate and resistance towards his father

Question 11

Euhemerism

Answer 11

Theory developed by Euhemerus, who claimed that the gods were men deified for their great deeds

Question 12

Etiological

Answer 12

Serving to explain something by giving a cause or reason for it

Question 13

Folktales

Answer 13

Stories of adventure, sometimes peopled with fantastic beings, whose primary goal is entertainment, also called Märchen

Question 14

Legend/Saga

Answer 14

Stories with a perceptible relationship to history

Question 15

Logos

Answer 15

Word meaning ‘the reason behind a speech’, introduced by Plato

Question 16

Mythos

Answer 16

Greek word meaning ‘speech’ or ‘tale’ or ‘story, used to derive the word myth

Question 17

Motifeme

Answer 17

Functions or units of action in the structure of myth

Question 18

Structuralism

Answer 18

A theoretical approach to mythology, first developed by Vladimir Propp, which may be defined as an attempt to analyze myths into their component parts

Question 19

Theagenes

Answer 19

A philosopher who used allegory to explain conflict amount gods

Question 20

True Myth

Answer 20

Also known as myth proper or divine myth, stories primarily concerned with gods and humankind’s relations with them

Question 21

Vladimir Propp

Answer 21

Developed the structural interpretation of myth through his study of Russian folktales

Question 22

Xenophanes

Answer 22

A poet and philosopher who vehemently attacked the conventional anthropomorphic depiction of the gods, believed in one supreme non-anthropomorphic god