CLAS 104 | Questions with 100% Verified Answers | Latest Update
2026/2027
Question: Define Mythos
Answer:
- Homer in the 8th century BC
- 'word', 'speech', 'tale or story'
- no universal definition of mythology
Question: Myth
Answer:
A traditional story about gods, ancestors, or heroes, told to explain the natural world or
the customs and beliefs of a society.
Question: Saga or legend:
Answer:
a story containing a kernel of historical truth, despite later fictional accretions.
Question: Folktale:
Answer:
a story, usually of oral origin, that contains elements of the fantastic, often in the pattern
of the adventure of a hero or a heroine. Its main function is entertainment, but it can also
educate with all sorts of insights.
Question: MYTH AND TRUTH
Answer:
- as opposed to the discoveries of science, whose truths continually change, myth, like
art is eternal
- Myth serves to interpret the whole of human experience and that interpretation can be
true or fictitious, valuable or insubstantial, quite apart from its historical veracity
Question: MYTH AND RELIGION
Answer:
Mircea Eliade in his appreciation of the sacredness of myth and the holy and timeless
world that it embodies
,Question: MYTH AND ETIOLOGY
Answer:
- An etiological interpretation of myth demands that a true myth must give the aitia, or
cause or reason, for a fact, a ritual practice, or an institution
- if one broadens the concept of the aitia of a myth to encompass any story that explains
or reveals something or anything, an etiological approach offers one of the most fertile
ways of interpreting myth, although it cannot really define it.
Question: Euhemerism
Answer:
an attempt to rationalize classical mythology, attributed to Euhemerus (ca. 300 B. C.). He
claimed that the gods were great men of old who had become deified.
Question: Allegory:
Answer:
a sustained metaphor. The allegorical approach to mythology is favored by the anti-
rationalists, who interpret the details of myth as symbols of universal truth.
Question: Allegorical nature myths
Answer:
Max Müller in the nineteenth century, myths are to be defined as explanations of
meteorological and cosmological phenomena. Müller's theory is too limited
Question: Freud
Answer:
interpretation of myth center on psychosexual development,
- the theory of the unconscious
- the interpretation of dreams
- Oedipus complex.
Question: Oedipus complex
Answer:
according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and
hatred for the rival father
Question: Dreams
Answer:
- dreams as the expression of repressed or concealed desires
- three basic functions: to condense elements; to displace elements, by altering them;
and to represent elements through symbols
- symbols of dreams can work in much the same way as the symbols of myths.
,Question: Carl Jung
Answer:
- Collective Unconscious
- Archetypes
Question: collective unconscious
Answer:
- Myths are a projection of collective uncounscious
- the revelation of the continuing psychic tendencies of a society
- important distinction between the personal unconscious, concerning matters of an
individual's own life, and the collective unconscious, embracing political and social
questions of the group
Question: Archetypes
Answer:
Myths contain images or "archetypes," according to Jung, traditional expressions of
collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols upon which the
society as a whole has come to depend
- the great earth mother, the supreme sky-god, the wise old man, the idealistic young
lover
Question: Myth and Society and Ritual
Answer:
- J. G. Frazer and Jane Harrison
- Robert Graves
- He separates myth from tales of other kinds by wisely focusing upon the literary
distinctions to be found in a variety of stories
Question: MYTH AS SOCIAL CHARTERS
Answer:
- Bronislav Malinowski
- identification of the close connection between myths and social institutions.
- Myths are related to practical life and explain existing practices, beliefs, and institutions
by reference to tradition;
- they are "charters" of social customs and beliefs.
Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Claude Levi Strauss
Answer:
Claude Lévi-Strauss
- myth as mode of communication in which the structure or interrelationships between
the parts, rather than the individual elements alone, establish meaning
- Binary oppositesx
, Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Vladimir Propp
Answer:
Vladimir Propp
- The recognition that these patterns are common to stories told throughout the world is
also most helpful for the study of comparative mythology
Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Walter Burkert
Answer:
Walter Burkert
- To Burkert, of great significance is the fact that a myth has a "historical dimension."
Question: Feminism
Answer:
the treatment and position of women in ancient Greece and the theme of rape.
Question: Women in Greek Society
Answer:
- Women were citizens of their communities, unlike noncitizens and slaves
- The role of women in religious rituals was fundamental
- A woman's education was dependent on her future role in society, her status or class,
and her individual needs
Question: The Theme of Rape
Answer:
Often there is no real distinction between the love, abduction, or rape of a woman by a
man and of a man by a woman.
Question: Homosexuality
Answer:
Homosexuality was accepted and accommodated as a part of life, certainly in Athens
- Zeus and Ganymede
- Poseidon and Pelops
- Apollo and Hyacinthus
- Apollo and Cyparissus
- Achilles and Patroclus
- Orestes and Pylades
- Nisus and Euryalus
2026/2027
Question: Define Mythos
Answer:
- Homer in the 8th century BC
- 'word', 'speech', 'tale or story'
- no universal definition of mythology
Question: Myth
Answer:
A traditional story about gods, ancestors, or heroes, told to explain the natural world or
the customs and beliefs of a society.
Question: Saga or legend:
Answer:
a story containing a kernel of historical truth, despite later fictional accretions.
Question: Folktale:
Answer:
a story, usually of oral origin, that contains elements of the fantastic, often in the pattern
of the adventure of a hero or a heroine. Its main function is entertainment, but it can also
educate with all sorts of insights.
Question: MYTH AND TRUTH
Answer:
- as opposed to the discoveries of science, whose truths continually change, myth, like
art is eternal
- Myth serves to interpret the whole of human experience and that interpretation can be
true or fictitious, valuable or insubstantial, quite apart from its historical veracity
Question: MYTH AND RELIGION
Answer:
Mircea Eliade in his appreciation of the sacredness of myth and the holy and timeless
world that it embodies
,Question: MYTH AND ETIOLOGY
Answer:
- An etiological interpretation of myth demands that a true myth must give the aitia, or
cause or reason, for a fact, a ritual practice, or an institution
- if one broadens the concept of the aitia of a myth to encompass any story that explains
or reveals something or anything, an etiological approach offers one of the most fertile
ways of interpreting myth, although it cannot really define it.
Question: Euhemerism
Answer:
an attempt to rationalize classical mythology, attributed to Euhemerus (ca. 300 B. C.). He
claimed that the gods were great men of old who had become deified.
Question: Allegory:
Answer:
a sustained metaphor. The allegorical approach to mythology is favored by the anti-
rationalists, who interpret the details of myth as symbols of universal truth.
Question: Allegorical nature myths
Answer:
Max Müller in the nineteenth century, myths are to be defined as explanations of
meteorological and cosmological phenomena. Müller's theory is too limited
Question: Freud
Answer:
interpretation of myth center on psychosexual development,
- the theory of the unconscious
- the interpretation of dreams
- Oedipus complex.
Question: Oedipus complex
Answer:
according to Freud, a boy's sexual desires toward his mother and feelings of jealousy and
hatred for the rival father
Question: Dreams
Answer:
- dreams as the expression of repressed or concealed desires
- three basic functions: to condense elements; to displace elements, by altering them;
and to represent elements through symbols
- symbols of dreams can work in much the same way as the symbols of myths.
,Question: Carl Jung
Answer:
- Collective Unconscious
- Archetypes
Question: collective unconscious
Answer:
- Myths are a projection of collective uncounscious
- the revelation of the continuing psychic tendencies of a society
- important distinction between the personal unconscious, concerning matters of an
individual's own life, and the collective unconscious, embracing political and social
questions of the group
Question: Archetypes
Answer:
Myths contain images or "archetypes," according to Jung, traditional expressions of
collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols upon which the
society as a whole has come to depend
- the great earth mother, the supreme sky-god, the wise old man, the idealistic young
lover
Question: Myth and Society and Ritual
Answer:
- J. G. Frazer and Jane Harrison
- Robert Graves
- He separates myth from tales of other kinds by wisely focusing upon the literary
distinctions to be found in a variety of stories
Question: MYTH AS SOCIAL CHARTERS
Answer:
- Bronislav Malinowski
- identification of the close connection between myths and social institutions.
- Myths are related to practical life and explain existing practices, beliefs, and institutions
by reference to tradition;
- they are "charters" of social customs and beliefs.
Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Claude Levi Strauss
Answer:
Claude Lévi-Strauss
- myth as mode of communication in which the structure or interrelationships between
the parts, rather than the individual elements alone, establish meaning
- Binary oppositesx
, Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Vladimir Propp
Answer:
Vladimir Propp
- The recognition that these patterns are common to stories told throughout the world is
also most helpful for the study of comparative mythology
Question: THE STRUCTURALISTS - Walter Burkert
Answer:
Walter Burkert
- To Burkert, of great significance is the fact that a myth has a "historical dimension."
Question: Feminism
Answer:
the treatment and position of women in ancient Greece and the theme of rape.
Question: Women in Greek Society
Answer:
- Women were citizens of their communities, unlike noncitizens and slaves
- The role of women in religious rituals was fundamental
- A woman's education was dependent on her future role in society, her status or class,
and her individual needs
Question: The Theme of Rape
Answer:
Often there is no real distinction between the love, abduction, or rape of a woman by a
man and of a man by a woman.
Question: Homosexuality
Answer:
Homosexuality was accepted and accommodated as a part of life, certainly in Athens
- Zeus and Ganymede
- Poseidon and Pelops
- Apollo and Hyacinthus
- Apollo and Cyparissus
- Achilles and Patroclus
- Orestes and Pylades
- Nisus and Euryalus