if we reach back to the beginnings of any culture we find stories about how the world came to be and
why things are the way they are why does rain fall from the sky where does fire come from
why are the oceans filled with water hey why does it get so dark at night so
ancient societies came up with stories to explain these things
we call these stories etiological tales or origin stories it's a story that explains
why things are the way they are sometimes these stories are also called porqua tales
for qua is the french word for why
between 700 and 480 bce the ancient greeks created a lot of etiological
tales that we call myths these myths had a cast of recurring characters
there were gods and goddesses like zeus the god of sky and thunder who overthrew
his own father chronos to become the most powerful god on mount olympus
there were also humans and demigods and all kinds of mythical creatures like a winged horse named
pegasus a merman named triton and this half man half bull creature called the minotaur
and of course someone somewhere had to have asked how this whole thing got started
well the greek version of creation goes something like this
there was a bunch of darkness and confusion and disorder called chaos then out of the formless
void three deities came to be there was gaia earth deity and mother of life tartarus the god of the
underworld and arrows the god of love so these gods started having children and let me tell you
they created some pretty dysfunctional families their children were monsters literally
like cyclops they also had some pretty powerful children like zeus
you remember him he was the one who controlled the sky and the thunder and overthrew his dad
cronos so then zeus ended up ruling from greek god headquarters also called mount olympus
zeus had some pretty powerful siblings too like hades god of the underworld uh as you might
imagine he wasn't a very happy-go-lucky guy zeus also had a brother named poseidon who ruled over
the sea and earthquakes you could always recognize him by the three-prong trident he carried around
zeus had a wife named tara and they had a bunch of kids his daughter athena
sprouted from his head that had to hurt then athena had an owl and she also had a brother
named apollo and apollo had a twin named artemis and then there was dionysus and demeter and the
list goes on and on long story short zeus had a lot of kids the stories about these ancient greek
gods and goddesses got pretty crazy especially when they started interacting with humans
but the stories also served a purpose they helped these ancient people make sense of their world
they helped bring an order to the chaos that people might have been feeling
and the stories and their characters were all very closely related we call these stories myths
myths are just stories that define a culture and the way the people of those cultures
understand all the crazy things that happened in the natural world that they had no way to explain
remember science was still pretty new and a sudden thunderstorm with bright bolts
of lightning and thunder so loud it could really rattle your insides might shake a person up a bit
but maybe being able to say zeus must be mad better watch out might take the edge
off having an explanation helped put people at ease and then the world didn't seem so scary
greek mythology has survived for centuries and influenced all facets of our modern culture
the names of constellations like pegasus orion hercules these are all names that derived from
greek mythology the apollo space missions sent american astronauts to the moon on saturn rockets
we have sports teams named trojans and titans that we love to root for and a lot of people might
not even know that these names are from greek myths authors often refer to greek myths as well
as we launch into a study of literature in our english one course we are going to build knowledge
about five greek myths that show up a lot in literature these greek myths are so pervasive
that they're referenced by different authors of many different cultures and time periods
first we'll read about prometheus a titan god who created a bunch of living things
and had a soft spot for his favorite creation humans against the will of zeus prometheus steals
fire and gives it to humans next we'll read about pandora's box something that should
never have been opened because it unleashed all kinds of misery
then we'll read about theseus who sets out to destroy something that kept his generation pretty
frightened we'll read about icarus who learned to fly and got a little carried away and then finally
we'll read about medusa who had a bad hair day every day because well her hair was made of snakes
these myths and their characters come up over and over again in literature
so learning about them will help you understand other things you read
they will also help you understand the culture and the world view of the ancient greeks
along the way you'll learn a lot of new vocabulary do some crafty writing review some things you
already know about grammar and add to your understanding of literature and literary terms
it's going to be an epic journey so get ready get set and remember to always be clever