Myth and Literature

A study of Indo-European mythology as it is preserved in some of the earliest myth texts in Celtic, Norse, and Greek literatures.  The meaning of myth will be examined and compared from culture to culture to see how this meaning may shed light on the ethos of each society as it is reflected in its literary works.  The role of oral tradition in the preservation of early myth will also be explored.  The Celtic texts that will be read are the IrishSecond Battle of Mag Tuired and The Táin, and in Welsh, the tales of Lludd and Llefelys and Math; the Norse texts will include Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, the Ynglinga Saga, and the Poetic Edda; the Greek texts are Hesiod’s Theogony and Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. All texts will be available in English translation.

Course requirements include a midterm and final examination.

No prerequisites.

Reading list:

Fitzgerald, Robert, tr.  The Odyssey.  Farrar, Straus & Girous, 1998.

Ford, Patrick K., tr.  The Mabinogi & Other Medieval Welsh Tales.  Univ. of California Press, 1977.

Gray, Elizabeth, ed. & tr.  Cath Maige Tuired:  Second Battle of Mag Tuired.  Irish Texts Society, 1982.

Kinsella, Thomas, tr.  The Táin.  Oxford Univ. Press, 1970

Lattimore, Richmond, tr. The Iliad of Homer.  Univ. of Chicago Press, 1961.

________________, tr.  Hesiod: The Works and Days—Theogony.  Univ. of Michigan Press, 1991.

Young, Jean  I., tr.  The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson.  Univ. of California Press, 1964.