Factual Perspectives on the Greek Mythology

     Greek mythology has fascinated mankind for a long time. Stories about gods, demons, men and women who have lived and their communications with them have caught the attention of children and their effects are the same for adult and elder generations. The stories about Hector, Achilles and Zeus are so captivating that they present an inimitable problem to historians. 

     A lot can be told about ancient mythology, the society from which the Greeks came, how they lived and what they thought about the world around them; but due to the nature of myth, it cannot be fully assumed. The myth deals with the magnificent, supernatural, and divine. Due to this reason, collective functions played by mythology in previous times for history became more important than the understanding of individual myths as it is the common thought that the history is not that what myth is (Richard, 2019).

     The common argument that is given in the support of history against myth is that history is true otherwise it is not history. A myth could be a failed history or what myths told are somehow the wrong parts of the history.  There are levels of credibility in myths. To understand it with an example, there is a myth in Greek history that Athena was born from the head of Zeus, which is completely not true, because historians believe that the Zeus never existed, if he didn’t then how could Athena, if possibly we believe that Zeus and Athena both existed in the history then it is hard to digest that how could anybody be born from head.

    On the other hand, a lot of history underlines the myth of Agamemnon's expedition against Troy. ‘Trojan War’ is the part of history, if it is exactly like the writings of Homer then it would be the part of history and not a sort of myth (Madeleine, 2019).

     According to Brelich, a known researcher of Greek mythology says, “to determine what is considered Greek mythology is one thing, and to know what is Greek myth is another”. This is more about texts (written materials) than text. Without any doubt we all have access to Greek mythology through the scriptures. In ancient times, the texts were read or performed by the Greeks to form their own sense of mythology. But myths are not the only medium for learning (unless one has a very broad definition of a text). 

    A mouth full of words can say thousand myths without accounting a writer’s/author’s name. It's just how the story goes of the creation of myths. Art has also demonstrated myths and history and allowed them to see in both senses. We think about remaining’s of sculpture and vase-painting, but forget that there were also the wall-paintings and they have been gone now with their reflection. It is just because of the media that Greek myths have been reinterpreted and exhibited for present generations (Dowden, 1942).  

     In fact, Greek Mythology is a shared corpus of subjects and ideas given in one list of stories. These tales connect, compare and contrast with other stories in the system, and are understood in the light of them. Greek mythology is an ' intertext, ' because it is made up of all the interpretations of myths that its audience has ever encountered and every new interpretation derives its meaning from how it is presented in relation to this multitude of earlier appearances (History, 2009).

    Myth has two major functions, "Robert Graves, poet and scholar, wrote in 1955." The first is to answer the kind of awkward questions children ask, like ' Who made the world? How is it going to end? Who has been the first man? Where are the souls after death going? ' The second function of the myth is to justify the existing social system and take traditional rites and customs into account. ' Stories of gods and goddesses and heroes and monsters have been an important part of everyday life in ancient Greece. 

     They explained everything from religious ceremonies to the climate, and gave meaning to the people around them who saw the world. Have you ever heard that most common consumer products come from Greek mythology with their names? For example, Nike boots are the nickname of the goddess of victory, and the Amazon.com website is named after the ancient female warrior race. Several school, basketball and football sports teams (for example, Titans, Spartans and Trojans) get their names from mythological sources as well (Richard, 2019).

     There is no single original text in Greek mythology, like the Christian Bible or the Hindu Vedas, which explains all the stories and characters of the myths. Rather, the oldest Greek myths were part of an oral history that began in the Bronze Age, and their stories and themes gradually unfolded in the archaic and classical period written literature. The author Hesiod's Theogony introduced Greek mythology's first written cosmogony or tale of birth. 

    The Theogony tells the story of the journey of the universe from nothingness (Chaos, a primeval void) to being, and details an elaborate family tree of elements, gods and goddesses that evolved from Chaos and came down from Gaia (Earth), Ouranos (Sky), Pontos (Sea) and Tartaros (Underworld) (History, 2009).

    The pantheon of deities that were said to live on Mount Olympus, Greece's highest mountain, is at the center of Greek mythology. They ruled all aspects of human life from their perch. Olympian gods and goddesses did look like males and females (although they could turn into animals and other things) and, as many myths described, were vulnerable to human liabilities and emotions (Dowden, 1942).  

References

History. (2009). Greek Mythology. A&E TV Network. Retrieved from
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/greek-mythology as on 27 November, 2019.

Ken. D. (1942). The Uses of Greek Mythology. Taylor and Francis Library. London.

Madeline. (2019). 3 Most Important Characters in Greek Myth. Theoi Articles. Retrieved
from https://www.theoi.com/articles/ as on November 27, 2019.

John. R. (2019). Greek Mythology. Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Greek-mythology as on 26 November, 2019.