This chapter provides an overview of what mythology is and is not. It defines mythology as stories that are important to a particular culture and reflect that culture's values. These stories can provide insights into aspects of the culture such as history, social structures, human psychology and limitations. While myths may contain outdated science, they represent fundamental truths for the societies that created them. The chapter uses the myth of the Trojan War as an example and analyzes what historical, anthropological and other insights can be gained from it.

1. Chapter 1
What Is Myth?

2. What Mythology Is
• This course will provide a series of
different definitions of mythology.
• In the present chapter, we approach a
definition of mythology that considers the
insights mythology provides into the
culture that tells a particular story.
• Some of these insights also represent the
role the stories play in a society, the
functions of myth.

3. What Mythology Is Not
• False stories
• Limited to stories about gods and heroes

4. Alligators in the Sewers
• We consider urban legends because, like the
oldest myths, they are oral tales.
• Alligators in the Sewers
• Psychological Insights: The struggles of
individuals to become mature human beings and
useful members of society
• Anthropological Insights: Culture – the values and
principles of a society
• Social or Sociological Insights: Groups that
people belong to or participate in – values about
group behavior, standards for admission

5. Myths and Legends as
True Stories
• Mythology is made up of stories that are
important to a society.
• As a result of this importance, the stories
become “fossilized” and are not updated to
incorporate advances in science and
technology.
• It is easy to look at mythological stories and
point out that they contain outdated science and
technology, but this fact does not speak to the
fundamental truths they represent for the
societies that tell them.

6. What about Gods and Heroes?
• Metaphysical Insights: What it means
to be human – typical characteristics
and limitations of humans, their
relationship to a larger reality or
principle
• Psychological Insights: The struggles
of individuals to become mature human
beings and useful members of society

7. Myth and Science
• Aetiological Insights: Explaining the
origin or cause of a custom or a fact of
the physical universe
• Cosmological Insights: The universe as
understood by the best science
available at the time
• Historical Insights: Verifiable historical
events reflected in mythical stories

8. The Trojan War:
An Example of Myth

9. The Trojan War:
An Example of Myth
• Note the “This story comes from”
boxes: all myths are versions
• The Judgment of Paris
• Political Background of the Trojan War
• The Decision of Achilles
• The Capture of Troy
• The Story of Odysseus
• The Coming of Age of Telemachus

10. Insights Provided by
the Myth of the Trojan War
• Historical Insights
– Deals with: verifiable historical events
• Anthropological Insights
– Deals with: culture
• Metaphysical Insights
– Deals with: human limits and mortality (god and death)
• Cosmological Insights
– Deals with: the universe as understood by science
• Sociological Insights
– Deals with: humans in groups or social units
• Psychological Insights
– Deals with: humans as individuals

11. Myth and Many Voices
• The experiences of Odysseus do not sum up the
experiences of all Greeks.
• When you are looking at a culture from the outside,
it is easy to think that you are seeing elements that
resemble your own views and values.
• It is only with caution that parallels can be drawn
with the experiences of different cultures.
• Victor Turner will discuss the different perspectives
a student of mythology can take in looking at
another culture (Ch. 27,pp. 417-418).

12. A Modern View of Myth
• In this book we present
• Stories
• Theoretical works to interpret those stories
from the standpoint of different disciplines,
including history, sociology, anthropology, and
psychology