PART I
Choose a myth from Robert Graves’ collection “The Greek
Myths” (on BB site) or from theoi.com—and analyze it according to the following
questions:
·
What do you take to be the overall message and
moral of your chosen myth?
·
Are there other myths similar to the one you’ve
chosen? Any we covered in class? Compare and contrast.
·
Contextualize it—how would a Greek audience have
likely interpreted or used this story?
·
What (if anything) does your myth have to say
about the nature of humanity, the gods, morality?
·
What do we know (if anything) about the author
of the version you’ve chosen? Does the
biography help understand why the tale is told in the way it?
·
Is your myth a part of a larger work? If so, how does it fit into the whole?
·
If there are multiple versions of your chosen
story, how do they contrast and compare?
PART II
Attending to the same myth, find another treatment (or
two) of the story from any time from the Renaissance Era (use AD 1500 as a
starting point) through present day and do a similar kind of comparison and
contrast as in Part I. Here you may
choose another literary version if you wish, or consider the portrayal of the
myth in painting, sculpture, mosaic, poetry, film, television, or any medium in
which the tale is retold. Keep it
specific—do your best to keep it to one treatment of the story.
·
What are major differences between the
versions? What is added or left
out? Why?
·
Do the differing versions have different
“morals” to them? Why?
·
How are the differing versions reflective of the
cultures and times that produced them?
·
Why do think this myth was preserved by a later
culture?
·
If applicable, how does changing the medium from
literary to say, film or painting influence or change the way the myth is
presented. Can a painting or a film do
things a written narrative cannot? Why
and how?
·
What makes your myth malleable or changeable
enough that radically different cultures can find something new and relevant in
it?
FORMAT
·
At least 8 pages (of written prose),
double-spaced, 12-point font
·
Title page (first page of text must begin at top
of first page after the title page)
·
Title page must include: a creative title, your name,
name of class, professor’s name, date
·
Primary and secondary sources properly cited on
separate bibliography page at end of paper
·
Consult at least two secondary, scholarly
sources and cite them in accordance with an accepted, academic style (e.g. APA,
MLA)—no loose, web sources! (for a reliable web database see
http://www.jstor.org)
·
Each page must be numbered (except title page)
·
Appendix with image or images (if applicable)—does
not count toward required page length
