Greek mythology

Greek mythology comprises the collected narratives of Greek gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, originally created and spread within an oral-poetic tradition. Our surviving sources of mythology are literary reworkings of this oral tradition, supplemented by interpretations of iconic imagery, sometimes modern ones, sometimes ancient ones, as myth was a means for later Greeks themselves to throw light on cult practices and traditions that were no longer explicable. The historian must sometimes deduce from hints in imagery, such as in vase paintings, and offhand references the recognition of mythic themes tacitly expressed in cult practice.

Sources

The main sources for Greek myth are Homer, Hesiod, the Greek dramatists, Pindar, Apollonius of Rhodes, Apollodorus, and the Latins Ovid, Hyginus and Nonnus.

Related Topics:
Homer - Hesiod - Pindar - Apollonius of Rhodes - Apollodorus - Ovid - Hyginus - Nonnus

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Standard secondary sources in English include:

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• Walter Burkert (1985) Greek Religion, Harvard University Press, 1985.
• Graves, Robert, The Greek Myths 1955.
• Lenardon, R. and M. Morford, Classical Mythology: Seventh Edition, Oxford 2002.
• Carl Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth, 1994.
• Kerenyi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks 1951.
• Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks 1959.

Influential, more specialized studies include:

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• Nagy, Gregory, The Best of the Achaeans, Johns Hopkins, 1979.
• Jane Ellen Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion, 1903
• Karl Kerenyi, Eleusis: archetypal image of mother and daughter, 1967.
• Karl Kerenyi, Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life, 1976

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