Greco/Roman Mythology

Muse

The nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne who had the power to inspire artists, poets, singers, and writers. They are listed below along with their spheres of influence: Calliope (epic poetry) Clio (history) Euterpe (lyric poetry) Melpomene (tragedy) Terpsichore (choral dance) Erato (love poetry) Polyhymnia (hymns and sacred poems) Urania (astronomy) Thalia (comedy)

nostos

The theme or motif of the homecoming--a return to one's family, community, or geographic origins after a long time away. Traditionally, this Greek designation refers specifically to Odysseus's return to Ithaca after two decades of wandering, but the motif appears in many other myths, folktales, and literary works. Steven Marion's novel Hollow Ground, for instance, deals with a return to Appalachia after the collapse of the coal-mining industry.

folkloric motifs

Recurring patterns of imagery or narrative that appear in folklore and folktales. Common folkloric motifs include the wise old man mentoring the young warrior, the handsome prince rescuing the damsel in distress, the "bed trick," and the "trickster tricked." Others include "beheading games," "the exchange of winnings," and the loathly lady who transforms into a beautiful maiden (all common in Celtic folklore). These folkloric motifs appear in fabliaux, in fairy tales, in mythology, in archetypal stories (see archetype), and in some of Shakespeare's plays.

onomastic

Related to names. For instance, a character's name might contain an onomastic symbol--if that character is named Faith (as in "Young Goodman Brown") or Lucy Westenra (which means "the light of the west") in Bram Stoker's Dracula, or Pandarus (which means "all-giving" and puns on "pander") in Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. Toponyms are also of interest to onomastic studies.

chthonic

Related to the dead, the grave, the underworld, or the fertility of the earth. In Greek mythology, the Greeks venerated three categories of spirits: (1) the Olympian gods, who were worshipped in public ceremonies--often outdoors on the east side of large columned temples in the agora, (2) ancestral heroes like Theseus and Hercules, who were often worshipped only in local shrines or at specific burial mounds, (3) chthonic spirits, which included (a) earth-gods and death-gods like Hades, Hecate, and Persephone; (b) lesser-known (and often nameless) spirits of the departed; (c) dark and bloody spirits of vengeance like the Furies and Nemesis, and (d) (especially in Minoan tradition) serpents, which were revered as intermediaries between the surface world of the living and the subterranean realm of the dead. This is why snakes were so prominent in the healing cults of Aesclepius. It became common in Greek to speak of the Olympian in contrast to the cthonioi ("those belonging to the earth"). See Burkert 199-203 for detailed discussion.

archetypal criticism

The analysis of a piece of literature through the examination of archetypes and archetypal patterns in Jungian psychology. See archetype below.

fame/shame culture

The anthropological term for a culture in which masculine behavior revolves around a code of martial honor. These cultures embody the idea of death before dishonor. Such civilizations often glorify military prowess and romanticize death in battle. Typically, such a society rewards men who display bravery by (a) engaging in risk-taking behavior to enhance one's reputation, (b) facing certain death in preference to accusations of cowardice, and (c) displaying loyalty to one's king, chieftain, liege lord, or other authoritative figure in the face of adversity. Those in power may reward such brave followers with land, material wealth, or social status, but the most important and most typical reward is fame or a good reputation. Especially in fatalistic fame/shame cultures, fame is the most valuable reward since it alone will exist after a hero's death. Just as such cultures reward bravery, loyalty, and martial prowess with the promise of fame, they punish cowardice, treachery, and weakness in battle with the threat of shame and mockery. A fame/shame culture is only successful in regulating behavior when an individual's fear of shame outweighs the fear of death. This dichotomy of fame/shame serves as a carrot and stick to regulate behavior in an otherwise chaotic and violent society. Sample behaviors linked with fame/shame cultures include the beot in Anglo-Saxon culture, the act of "counting coup" among certain Amerindian tribes, displays of trophies among certain head-hunting tribes and the Irish Celts, and the commemoration of war-heros in national monuments or songs in cultures worldwide. We can see signs of fame/shame culture in the heroic poetry of the Anglo-Saxons, where the poem "The Battle of Maldon" praises by name those warriors who stood their ground with Byrtnoth to die fighting the Viking invaders and condemns by name those men who fled the battle and survived. Characteristically, the poem lists the men's lineage in order to spread the honor or shame to other family members as well. The poem Beowulf also shows signs of fame/shame culture in the behavior of Hrothgar's coast-guard, who challenges over a dozen gigantic armed men, and the boasts (beot) of Beowulf himself. It is interesting that not all militaristic or violent cultures use the fame/shame social mechanism to ensure bravery and regulate martial behavior. Fame/shame cultures require men to deliberately seek the rewards of bravery and consciously fear the social stigma of cowardice. The point isn't that a hero is unafraid of death. The point is that the hero acts in spite of being afraid. In contrast, some martial cultures seek to short-circuit fear by repressing it or by encouraging warriors to enter altered states of consciousness. Medieval Vikings had the tradition of the berserker, in which the warrior apparently entered a hypnogogic, frenzied state to lose his awareness of fear and pain. Similarly, the path of bushido among the Japanese samauri was heavily influenced by the Buddhist doctrine of nirvana (mental and emotional emptiness), in which the warrior enters combat in a Zen-like emotional state, a mindset in which he is divorced from his emotions and thoughts so that his martial behavior is reflexive and automatic rather than emotional. The samauri class went so far as to have a funeral for living warriors as soon as they entered the service of a Japanese lord because the samauri accepted their own deaths as soon as they took the path of bushido, and were thus accordingly cut off from the ties of family and loved ones. See also kleos.

chorus

(1) A group of singers who stand alongside or off stage from the principal performers in a dramatic or musical performance. (2) The song or refrain that this group of singers sings. In ancient Greece, the chorus was originally a group of male singers and dancers (choreuti) who participated in religious festivals and dramatic performances by singing commenting on the deeds of the characters and interpreting the significance of the events within the play. This group contrasts with the actors (Greek hypocrites). Shakespeare alters the traditional chorus by replacing the singers with a single figure--often allegorical in nature. For instance, "Time" comes on stage in The Winter's Tale to explain the passing years. Likewise, "Rumor" appears in Henry IV, Part Two to summarize the gossip about Prince Hal. See also choragos and choric figure, above.

Olympian

Known as the "theoi," in Greek, the Olympian deities were those gods in Greco-Roman mythology who resided or frequently met on the top of Mount Olympus as part of Zeus' advisors and close family. They were traditionally numbered at twelve, though accounts varied slightly in which deities fell into this category. The Greeks saw the Olympian deities as contrasting with both the Twelve Titans (whom Zeus overthrew to establish his own reign) and with the older chthonic gods (i.e., the spirits of the dead, and fertility spirits of blood and vengeance associated the earth).

polytheism

The belief in multiple deities--usually non-omniscient and non-omnipotent--in contrast with the idea of a single all-powerful deity.

taboo

(1) In anthropology, a taboo is a socially prohibited activity. For instance, in classical Greek culture, it was forbidden for a murderer or menstruating woman to enter the sacred space of a temple or the central agora of a city beyond a temenos boundary lest that action spread contagious miasma. (2) A linguistic taboo is a social prohibition that forbids mentioning a word or subject. Commonly, various cultures might have taboos against mentioning bodily fluids, defecation, certain sexual activities, or certain religious terms. These terms often suffer linguistic pejoration and become "curse-words." For instance, in Britain, the adjective bloody is considered taboo or impolite to speak aloud as a curse word because of its older religious connotations as a medieval curse about the blood of Christ's wounds. In American English, words describing specific sexual activities or bodily functions usually are taboo for polite conversation, and so on.

etymology

(1) The origin of a word. (2) The study of word origins and the history of words--especially how words can be traced back to a root, i.e., an earlier source word. See etymon. Contrast with folk etymology.

atmosphere

(Also called mood): The emotional feelings inspired by a work. The term is borrowed from meteorology to describe the dominant mood of a selection as it is created by diction, dialogue, setting, and description. Often the opening scene in a play or novel establishes an atmosphere appropriate to the theme of the entire work. The opening of Shakespeare's Hamlet creates a brooding atmosphere of unease. Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher establishes an atmosphere of gloom and emotional decay. The opening of Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 establishes a surreal atmosphere of confusion, and so on. Compare with ambiance, above.

peripeteia

(Also spelled peripetea, Greek for "sudden change"): The sudden reversal of fortune in a story, play, or any narrative in which there is an observable change in direction. In tragedy, this is often a change from stability and happiness toward the destruction or downfall of the protagonist.

exodos

(Greek "leaving," cf. Latin exodus): The last piece of a Greek tragedy, an episode occurring after the last choral ode and ended by the ceremonial exit of all the actors.

hypocrites

(Greek for "One who plays a part"): The classical Athenian word for an actor. Not to be confused with Hippocrates, the physician who founded the hippocratic oath. Nor should the term be confused with the plural of English "hypocrite."

kleos

(Greek, "What others hear about you"): Renown, honor, glory, and fair reputation achieved through great deeds--especially battle but to a lesser extent in Olympic games, poetry contests, and literature. The Greeks thought of kleos as something transferred from a father to a son, and the son would inherit the duty for carrying on and building upon the "glory" of the father. In Greek literature, kleos becomes a predominant concern of epic heroes like Achilles, who must choose between achieving kleos but dying in battle, or having a long and happy life but having his name fade after a few generations. See also fame/shame culture.

thanatos

(Greek, "death"): Freud's term for a subconscious desire for self-destruction--a secret longing to die--a death wish. See also wish fulfillment.

miasma

(Greek, "stench"): Literally referring to a stench or bad smell, the Greek term also metaphorically indicates a sort of ceremonial taint or spiritual stain that can result from various sorts of impurity. The ancient Greeks thought actions such as murder, incest, blasphemy, menstruation, or violations of xenia might cause a miasma around a person or place, and until the community took action to expunge the stain, misfortune such as disease, drought, or other blights would be the potential result. Normally, people thought to be stained by miasma were forbidden to pass the sacred marker (temenos) separating the holy ground of a temple or a public forum from non-sacred space. The term is particularly applicable in the play Oedipus Rex, in which the entire community of Thebes has fallen under a curse because of a miasma in their midst.

diachronic

(Grk, "across time"): An analysis of literature, history, or linguistics is diachronic if it examines changes or developments in a single area or discipline over the course of many centuries. This term is the opposite of a synchronic analysis, which limits itself to studying a single moment or time in history, but compares the traits or developments across a wide area of geography or a wide number of disciplines.

liminal

(Latin limin, "threshold"): A liminal space is a blurry boundary zone between two established and clear spatial areas, and a liminal moment is a blurry boundary period between two segments of time. Most cultures have special rituals, customs, or markers to indicate the transitional nature of such liminal spaces or liminal times. Examples include boundary stones, rites of passage, high school graduations, births, deaths, marriages, carrying the bride over the threshold, etc. These special markers may involve elaborate ceremonies (wedding vows), special wardrobe (mortarboard caps and medieval scholar's gown), or unusual taboos (the custom of not seeing the bride before the wedding). Liminal zones feature strongly in folklore, mythology, and Arthurian legend. See the Other World for further information. For in-depth discussion, see Victor Turner's Drama, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society.

legend

(Latin, legendus, "that which ought to be read"): As J. A. Cuddon puts it, a legend is "a story or narrative that which lies somewhere between myth and historical fact and which, as a rule, is about a particular figure or person" (484). It is a traditional narrative often focusing on a specific location or specific historical figure. Like the myth, a legend often provides an etiological narrative, and it often fills in gaps in historical records. Unlike myths, legends usually do not involve powerful gods or world-altering supernatural events--though they can to a small degree. Famous examples of legends are the legend of Faust, the Flying Dutchman, the Wandering Jew, King Arthur, Skandarbeg, and Pecos Bill. Often real historical figures like Salvatore Giuliano and Che Guevara attract legends in their wake. Often tales that were originally myths about deities can devolve into legends, such as might be the case with several Arthurian legends. On the other hand, narratives that start as historical legends can also eventually turn into full-fledged cultural myths themselves, as Alfred Lyall has demonstrated.

in medias res

(Latin: "In the middle[s] of things"): The classical tradition of opening an epic not in the chronological point at which the sequence of events would start, but rather at the midway point of the story. Later on in the narrative, the hero will recount verbally to others what events took place earlier. Usually in medias res is a technique used to heighten dramatic tension or to create a sense of mystery. This term is the opposite of the phrase ab ovo, when a story begins in the beginning and then proceeds in a strictly chronological manner without using the characters' dialogue, flashbacks, or memories to hop back and forth in time. (Contrast with flashback, in which the past events are experienced as a memory, and anastrophe, in which the entire story is cut into chronological pieces and experienced in a seemingly random or inverted pattern.)

dramatis personae

(Latin: "people of the play"): A list of the complete cast, i.e., the various characters that will appear in the play. This list usually appears before the text of the main play begins in printed copies of the text. In late periods of drama, the dramatis personae often included a brief description of the character's personality or appearance. In the First Folio, such lists appeared at the end of some Shakespearean plays, but not at the end of all of them.

totemism

(from Ojibwe odoodem): In its most specific sense, the term applies to the religious practices of the Native American Ojibiwa tribe, i.e., a religious belief in which a family or a clan would be watched over assisted by a totem-spirit. Emile Durkheim popularized the concept as a focus of anthropological study in the early twentieth century. Today, anthropologists and scholars of comparative religion apply the term generally to such beliefs among Native American tribes and find analogues in Western and Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia and the Arctic Circle. Like shamanism, totemism sees the spirit-world as being filled with spirits that take the form of natural phenomena (especially animals, astrological or meteorological phenomena, or geographic features of the land). These spirits are personified and often treated as family members (i.e., "Brother Owl" or "Grandfather Moon") or as ancient ancestral spirits who founded the clan or tribe (for instance, one clan might claim to be descended from the Great Sea Turtle, another clan from the First Jaguar, etc.) Often the tribe has a shaman responsible for contact with the totem-spirit, and the tribe may go through elaborate hunting ceremonies to apologize for hunting their "mascot" or may develop complex taboos regarding the animal. Some scholars of mythology believe long-forgotten totemism explains otherwise inexplicable rituals and myths in classical religion. For instance, consider Athena's association with owls or the local Artemis ceremonies in which young girls would dress up as bears and dance. These may point to prehistoric times in which Athena was an owl totem or Artemis was the spirit of the great she-bear, long before these goddesses were anthropomophosized. The connotations and rituals linger even when the original meaning is forgotten. Similar background may explain the association of the Roman god Mars with wolves and woodpeckers, or the Egyptian god Thoth with the ibis, and so on.

composite monster

(in architecture, often called a chimera after the Greek monster): The term is one mythologists use to describe the fantastical creatures in Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek, and medieval European legends in which the beast is composed of the body-parts of various animals. For instance, in Greek mythology, the chimera has the body of a lion, tale of a serpent, wings of a bat, and a goat-head, a lion-head, and a serpent's head. Likewise, the sphinx has a lion's body and a woman's head and breasts; the centaur has a horse's body and human torso and a human head where the horse-head should be; the minotaur has a bull's head and a man's body; and the harpy has an avian body and a woman's head, breasts, and arms. Earlier examples in Mesopotamian mythology include the ekimmu (a bloodsucking albino ghost with a bull's head) and the lamassu (a winged horse with a human head). In the medieval period, composite monsters include the formecolion, with an ant's body and a lion's head; the mermaid, with a human top and a fish bottom; and the cockatrice, which mingles parts of a rooster and a serpent. Contrast with additive monster, above. Composite monsters were common in the legends of classical and ancient cultures, but diminished in favor after the Renaissance. Many theories propose to explain the common tendency to create composite monsters. Theories include mistranslation in traveler's tales, in which an animal is describing as having a head like such-and-such a creature, but the simile is lost in translation; the encounter of fossil remnants of extinct animals, or bones found jumbled together and misassembled; and the heraldic practice of dimidiation, in which a nobleman's son might take two animals found on his father's and mother's coats of arms combine them into a composite creature to illustrate his genealogy. An example in 20th century films includes The Fly. In this 1950s horror classic, a fly and a human trade bodies and heads.Cf. therianthropic and theriomorphic.

choragos

(often Latinized as choragus): A sponsor or patron of a play in classical Greece. Often this sponsor was honored by serving as the leader of the chorus

stasimon

(plural stasima): From Greek "stationary song," a stasimon is an ode sung by the chorus in a Greek play after the chorus takes its position in the orchestra and remains standing motionless, instead of dancing. The stasima also serve as dividing segments separating episodia of dialogue spoken by the actors. Structurally, a tragedy involves a balanced alternation between the episodia and the stasimon. See also chorus, episodia, and orchestra.

crisis

(plural: crises): The turning point of uncertainty and tension resulting from earlier conflict in a plot. At the moment of crisis in a story, it is unclear if the protagonist will succeed or fail in his struggle. The crisis usually leads to or overlaps with the climax of a story, though some critics use the two terms synonymously. See climax, literary, above.

hapax legomenon

(plural: hapax legomena): Any word of indeterminate meaning appearing only once in the surviving textual records of an ancient language. The word's rarity makes it difficult for modern scholars to figure out its meaning by context. Several words in Anglo-Saxon poetry and in the Bible, for example, are hapax legomena. In fact, somewhere between 1501 and 2400 words in the Bible fall into this category, depending upon how strictly we define the term, as Frederick Greenspahn notes in Hapax Legomena in the Hebrew Bible (Ann Arbor, MI): 22-41. The Book of Hosea alone has nine such untranslatable terms in the space of 263 lines as Greenspahn points out in an article from Volume 30 of Vetus Testamentum (17).

hubris

(sometimes spelled Hybris): The Greek term hubris is difficult to translate directly into English. It is a negative term implying both arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence, and also a hamartia (see above), a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one's abilities. It is the opposite of the Greek term arête, which implies a humble and constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a realistic awareness that such perfection cannot be reached. As long as an individual strives to do and be the best, that individual has arête. As soon as the individual believes he has actually achieved arête, however, he or she has lost that exalted state and fallen into hubris, unable to recognize personal limitations or the humble need to improve constantly. This leads to overwhelming pride, and this in turn leads to a downfall.

dactylic

A three-syllable foot consisting of a heavy stress and two light stresses. Examples of words in English that naturally constitute dactyls include strawberry, carefully, changeable, merrily, mannequin, tenderly, prominent, buffalo, glycerin, notable, scorpion, tedious, horrible, and parable. Verses written in feet that follow this pattern are said to be in dactylic meter. For further discussion, see meter, or click here for a PDF handout contrasting dactyls and other types of feet.

genre

A type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction. These general genres are often subdivided into more specific genres and subgenres. For instance, precise examples of genres might include murder mysteries, westerns, sonnets, lyric poetry, epics, tragedies, etc. Bookstores, libraries, and services like Redbox or Netflix may label and subdivide their books or films into genres for the convenience of shoppers seeking a specific category of literature.

triad

A collection of three ideas, concepts, or deities loosely connected--as opposed to a pure trinity in which the three concepts are much more closely linked or equivalent to each other. The oldest known triad comes from the Sumerian scholastic period (circa 2400-2200 BCE). Here, the gods of heaven, earth, and water (Anu, Enlil, and Enki) would form a common group of three linked together in religious poetry and ritual (Hopper 6), as was the case with the Babylonian triad of air deities, Sin, Shamash, and Raman who ruled the moon, sun, and storms (Hopper 20). The former Babylonian triad later altered to focus on Anu, Baal, and Ea in following centuries--a formula reminiscent of the three divine brothers Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon in Greek mythology (Hopper 7). The three Greek fates (Klotho the spinner, Lachesis the measurer, and Atropos the cutter) are a triad matched by the three Germanic Norns (Urd, Verdandi, and Skuld). Shiva, Vishnu, and Brahma are the Hindu triad representing destruction, preservation, and creation. Often triads revolve around the idea of the "celestial family"--such as the Egyptian Osiris, Isis, and Horus or it may consist consist of three brothers--such as the cyclopean smiths who assist Hephaestus: Brontos, Sterope, and Argus. Note that the idea of a triad is distinct from the idea of a trinity, in which three divine persons are thought to be in some way equivalent or identical to each other--as is the case in the Christian trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) or the Egyptian solar trinity (Horus, Ra, and Atun--the sun gods associated with the morning, noonday, and setting sun). The first Christian missionaries to Ireland were greatly aided by the fact that Irish mythology already contained an idea of trinity in the form of three-headed or three-personed gods, as MacCulloch notes in The Religion of the Ancient Celts (34, qtd. in Hopper 203). In a looser sense, any grouping of three is a triad--including groupings such as these: past-present-future earth-sea-sky heart-mind-body beginning-middle-end father-mother-child heaven, earth, hell (or heaven, hell, and purgatory) childhood, adulthood, and old age the world, the flesh, the devil the three steps of Vishnu in Hindu mythology. faith, hope, and love In Irish literature, triads are often comical when they appear in verse. They often involve bathos, with an amusing or anticlimactic item listed in the third slot. In Welsh literature, the work known as the Welsh Triads consists of many delightful and humorous sets of three--such as the "three costly pillages," the "three frivolous bards," the "three inventors," the "three ill resolutions," even the "three well-endowed warriors."

drama

A composition in prose or verse presenting, in pantomime and dialogue, a narrative involving conflict between a character or characters and some external or internal force (see conflict). Playwrights usually design dramas for presentation on a stage in front of an audience. Aristotle called drama "imitated human action." Drama may have originated in religious ceremonies. Thespis of Attica (sixth century BCE) was the first recorded composer of a tragedy. Tragedies in their earliest stage were performed by a single actor who interacted with the chorus. The playwright Aeschylus added a second actor on the stage (deuteragonist) to allow additional conflict and dialogue. Sophocles and Euripides added a third (tritagonist). Medieval drama may have evolved independently from rites commemorating the birth and death of Christ. During the late medieval period and the early Renaissance, drama gradually altered to the form we know today. The mid-sixteenth century in England in particular was one of the greatest periods of world drama. In traditional Greek drama, as defined by Aristotle, a play was to consist of five acts and follow the three dramatic unities. In more recent drama (i.e., during the last two centuries), plays have frequently consisted of three acts, and playwrights have felt more comfortable disregarding the confines of Aristotelian rules involving verisimilitude. See also unities, comedy, tragedy, revenge play, miracle play, morality play, and mystery play. An individual work of drama is called a play.

Freytag's pyramid

A diagram of dramatic structure, one which shows complication and emotional tension rising like one side of a pyramid toward its apex, which represents the climax of action. Once the climax is over, the descending side of the pyramid depicts the decrease in tension and complication as the drama reaches its conclusion and denouement. A sample chart is available to view. Freytag designed the chart for discussing tragedy, but it can be applied to many kinds of fiction.

epic simile

A formal and sustained simile (see under tropes). Like a regular simile, an epic simile makes a comparison between one object and another using "like" or "as." However, unlike a regular simile, which often appears in a single sentence, the epic simile appears in the genre of the epic and it may be developed at great length, often up to fifty or a hundred lines. Examples include Homer's comparison between Odysseus clinging to the rocks and an octopus with pebbles stuck in its tentacles, or Virgil's comparison between the city of Carthage and a bee-hive. For an example of a Homeric epic simile from The Odyssey, click here. See epic, above.

trinity

A grouping or relationship of three divine persons thought in some way to be equivalent or identical to each other--as is the case in the Christian trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) or the Egyptian solar trinity (Horus, Ra, and Atun--the sun-gods associated with the morning, noonday, and setting sun). The first Christian missionaries to Ireland were greatly aided by the fact that Irish mythology already contained an idea of trinity in the form of three-headed or three-personed gods, as MacCulloch notes in The Religion of the Ancient Celts (34, referenced. in Hopper 203). Contrast with a triad, a group of three loosely connected with each other in mythology, philosophy, or poetry. In patristic and medieval literature, a number of theological treatises survive pertaining to the trinity--the most influential probably being Saint Augustine's De Trinitate. Many heretical groups originated in disputes concerning the nature of the trinity (see heresy for more information). The concept of trinity strongly influences Dante's Divine Comedy. To mimic the nature of a threefold deity, Dante writes his poem in terza rima (with sets of three interlocking rhymes); he divides the work into three sections (Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso); finally, he subdivides each section into 33 cantos. Even Satan himself in the work appears as a three-headed, six-winged monster that mimics the tripartite structure of the Godhead. Such numerology is typical of many medieval writings.

hexameter

A line consisting of six metrical feet. Very common in Greek and Latin literature, less common in English. See meter

invocation of the Muse

A prayer or address made to the one of the nine muses of Greco-Roman mythology, in which the poet asks for the inspiration, skill, knowledge, or appropriate mood to create a poem worthy of his subject-matter. The invocation of the muse traditionally begins Greco-Roman epics and elegies. See also muses.

shamanism

A religious practice first identified by anthropologists studying hunter-gatherer tribes in Siberia, Alaska, and northern Canada in which a shaman would serve as a mediator between his tribal community and the spirit world. The shaman would bridge this gap through spiritual exercises (such as chanting to induce trances) or through symbolic journeys (like descending into a cave or climbing a mountain) or through magical transformations (such as donning an elk skin or a mask to become one with the Spirit of All Elk). In these shamanistic religions, the shaman was thought either to project his soul magically out of his body to reach the spirit world or else to physically enter it through his journey. Once in the spirit world, he would communicate with the spirits to ensure a good hunt or good weather, to seek spiritual advice, or to ask for assistance with curing a disease. The spirits were typically animistic or totemic in nature rather than anthropomorphic. In its strictest original sense, shamanism applies only to the practices of a half-dozen or so tribes in the far north around the Arctic Circle, but some scholars in comparative religion have popularized the term and applied it to similar beliefs among South American, African, Australian, and Polynesian ethnic groups. Some go so far as to argue that hunter-gatherer societies naturally tend to form shamanistic religions, or that shamanism is humanity's "original" or "default" religious belief before the rise of agriculture caused vegetationsdämons to complicate the pantheon. In classical mythology and sacrificial rites, many features of individual myths appear to originate in shamanistic hunting rituals, as scholars like Walter Burkert have argued.

epithet

A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the normal name. Frequently, this technique allows a poet to extend a line by a few syllables in a poetic manner that characterizes an individual or a setting within an epic poem. (1) The Homeric epithet in classical literature often includes compounds of two words such as, "fleet-footed Achilles," "Cow-eyed Hera," "Grey-eyed Athena," or "the wine-dark sea." In other cases, it appears as a phrase, such as "Odysseus the man-of-many-wiles," or whatnot. Click here for more examples. (2) The historical epithet is a descriptive phrase attached to a ruler's name. For instance, King Alfred the Great, Duke Lorenzo the Magnificent, Robert the Devil, Richard the Lionheart, and so on. (3) The generally descriptive epithet would appear in Old Norse and Germanic cultures to help distinguish individuals, thus giving us (in Njal's Saga) colorful names such as Hallbjorn Half-Troll, Ulf the Squinter, Hjorleif the Womanizer, and Ketil Flat-Nose. Do not confuse the epithet with the epitaph or epigram.

deuteragonist

A sidekick who accompanies the main protagonist, the main character or hero, in a narrative. In The Advenures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, the slave Jim is a deuteragonist and Huck Finn is the protagonist. The deuteragonist may be either round or flat as a character, and he often serves as a foil to the protagonist as well. Note that classical scholars often use the word deuteragonist in a more restricted sense. In the oldest form of classical Greek drama, plays originally consisted of a single character standing on stage speaking with the chorus. Later dramatists introduced the innovation of a second actor (the deuteragonist) who stood on stage and donned a variety of masks to represent the other various characters besides the hero. A still later innovation was the tritagonist, a third character on stage which allowed more complex interactions of dialogue. (See further discussion under character, and see protagonist, round character, flat character, foil, and tritagonist.)

cultural symbol

A symbol widely or generally accepted as meaning something specific within an entire culture or social group, as opposed to a contextual symbol created by a single author that has meaning only within a single work or group of works. Examples of cultural symbols in Western culture include the cross as a symbol of Christianity, the American flag as a symbol of America's colonial history of thirteen colonies growing into fifty states, the gold ring as a symbol of marital commitment, the Caduceus as a symbol of medicine, and the color black as a symbol of mourning. Examples of cultural symbols in other cultures include white as a symbol of mourning in Japan, the Yin-Yang sphere as an oriental symbol of oppositional forces in balance, the white crane as a symbol of longevity in Mandarin China, and so forth. Any writer in a specific culture could use one of these symbols and be relatively confident that the reader would understand what each symbol represented. Thus, if a writer depicted a pedophilic priest as trampling a crucifix into the mud, it is likely the reader would understand this action represents the way the priest tramples Christian ideals, and so forth. Contrast with contextual symbol and archetype.

synchronic

A synchronic study is one that provides an overview of a subject at a particular moment in time, as opposed to a diachronic study, which traces changes from one time period to the next across many years or centuries. For example, in linguistics, etymology is a diachronic study--one concerned with where words came from in the past and how their meanings have changed from century to century. Saussurian linguistics, on the other hand, studies language synchronically as a functioning system of signs existing at the present moment without studying developmental changes across time.

mythology

A system of stories about the gods, often explicitly religious in nature, that possibly were once believed to be true by a specific cultural group, but may no longer be believed as literally true by their descendents. Like religions everywhere, mythology often provided etiological and eschatological narratives (see above) to help explain why the world works the way it does, to provide a rationale for customs and observances, to establish set rituals for sacred ceremonies, and to predict what happens to individuals after death. If the protagonist is a normal human rather than a supernatural being, the traditional story is usually called a legend rather than a myth. If the story concerns supernatural beings who are not deities, but rather spirits, ghosts, fairies, and other creatures, it is usually called a folktale or fairy tale rather than a myth (see folklore, below). Samples of myths appear in the writings of Homer, Virgil, and Ovid.

textual variant

A version of a text that has differences in wording or structure compared with other texts, especially one with missing lines or extra lines added. In some cases, textual variants reflect the difference between an author's early version or rough draft of a work and a later version or polished final product. Variance in Shakespeare's plays might have come about in the difference between the foul papers (handwritten rough drafts) and the fair copy (the largely corrected versions sent to the printers). Variations in Chaucer's manuscripts of The Canterbury Tales might reflect an earlier, alternative scheme for structuring the work that Chaucer later abandoned in favor of a revised order for the various tales. Other textual variants in literary works are the product of error, scribal corruption, intentional censorship, or errata. See fair copy, errata, foul papers, scribal corruption, and Ur-text.

heroic age of Greece

Also known as the Homeric Age, this is the period of time between 1200-800 BCE. The term is normally used as a contrast with the Golden Age of Greece--the fifth century BCE when Athens was at its height of power.

solar myth

Alvin Boyd Kuhn and Max Müller were philologists who attempted to explain the origin of a number of myths and religious practices by linking them to the animistic worship of various celestial phenomena including meteorological events (weather gods), sky gods (e.g. Ouranos), and astronomical bodies (stars, planets, moon, and most especially the sun). The name "Solar Deity" refers to such a god generally, and "Solar Myth" is thus the term most often linked with this school of thought. Scholars in the "Solar Myth" school tend to trace multiple deities or heroes (even in a single narrative) back to primitive sun worship and identify analogues in various legends of sun gods. Some medievalists like Roger S. Loomis have gone so far as to trace various Arthurian characters back to Celtic Solar Deities. The theory fell into disfavor in late twentieth-century scholarship partly because of its reductive "one-size-fits-all" approach to mythology, and partly because some of the claims of Kuhn and Müller have been demonstrably proven false. For instance, while Solar Myth theorists first argued that various tribal deities and heros in Homeric and Hindu mythology were later incarnations of early sun deities, later archeological or philological evidence showed some of these local gods were real historical figures who were later elevated to godhood in the belief of future generations. An example of this was Alfred Lyall's demonstration that the names of certain Rajasthan deities could be linked to historical Rajput clan leaders who lived only a century or two before their "apotheosis" into mythology.

source

An earlier work of literature or folklore used as the basis of a later work. Scholars use the term source only when it is clear that one of the manuscripts or one piece of oral transmission influenced a specific later work. If that relationship is not clear, two works sharing similar material or subject-matter are said to be analogues if it is uncertain which one influenced the other or if both might originate from some third, lost source. See also stemma and Ur-text. (2) When students write a research paper, their sources are the original places where they found facts, ideas, and quotations. Primary sources are the main work of literature the students are citing and analyzing (such as Shakespeare's Macbeth or Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises). A secondary source comes from all other materials--especially those later writings scholars produce about Macbeth or Hemingway (or whatever the topic is). Secondary sources might include articles in peer-reviewed journals, biographies of the author, books analyzing or discussing a particular work of literature, and so on. All literary analyses should use quotations or references to the primary text as the main componant of an argument--especially in the case of a close-reading. Longer literary assignments such as research papers should also make use of appropriate secondary research. See also peer-reviewed journal.

catharsis

An emotional discharge that brings about a moral or spiritual renewal or welcome relief from tension and anxiety. According to Aristotle, catharsis is the marking feature and ultimate end of any tragic artistic work. He writes in his Poetics (c. 350 BCE): "Tragedy is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; . . . through pity [eleos] and fear [phobos] effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions" (Book 6.2). (See tragedy.) Click here to download a pdf handout concerning this material.

epic

An epic in its most specific sense is a genre of classical poetry. It is a poem that is (a) a long narrative about a serious subject, (b) told in an elevated style of language, (c) focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group (d) in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. Usually, the epic has (e) a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area, (f) it contains superhuman feats of strength or military prowess, and gods or supernatural beings frequently take part in the action. The poem begins with (g) the invocation of a muse to inspire the poet and, (h) the narrative starts in medias res (see above). (i) The epic contains long catalogs of heroes or important characters, focusing on highborn kings and great warriors rather than peasants and commoners. J. A. Cuddon notes that the term primary epic refers to folk epics, i.e., versions of an epic narrative that were transmitted orally in pre-literate cultures; the term secondary epic refers to literary epics, i.e., versions that are actually written down rather than chanted or sung (284). Often, these secondary epics retain elements of oral-formulaic transmission, such as staggered intervals in which the poet summarizes earlier events, standardized epithets and phrases originally used by singers to fill out dactylic hexameters during extemporaneous performance, and so on.

folk etymology

An incorrect but popular explanation for the origins of a word. For instance, popular folk etymology states that the word posh is an acronym for "Port Outbound, Starboard Homebound"--the part of a luxury liner with the best view on either journey on a particular sealiner. In actual fact, the term posh predates the formation of the company supposed to have invented the term.

eponymous archon

An official in classical Athens. The holder of this office arranged the production of tragedies and comedies at annual festivals honoring Dionysus. Each year was named after the officiating eponymous archon. Contrast with the choragos, the individual who paid for a tragedy's performance and thus won the lead-spot in the chorus.

archetype

An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often, archetypes include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race. These images have particular emotional resonance and power. Archetypes recur in different times and places in myth, literature, folklore, fairy tales, dreams, artwork, and religious rituals. Using the comparative anthropological work of Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough, the psychologist Carl Jung theorized that the archetype originates in the collective unconscious of mankind, i.e., the shared experiences of a race or culture, such as birth, death, love, family life, and struggles to survive and grow up. These would be expressed in the subconscious of an individual who would recreate them in myths, dreams, and literature. Examples of archetypes found cross-culturally include the following: (1) Recurring symbolic situations (such as the orphaned prince or the lost chieftain's son raised ignorant of his heritage until he is rediscovered by his parents, or the damsel in distress rescued from a hideous monster by a handsome young man who later marries the girl. Also, the long journey, the difficult quest or search, the catalog of difficult tasks, the pursuit of revenge, the descent into the underworld, redemptive rituals, fertility rites, the great flood, the End of the World), (2) Recurring themes (such as the Faustian bargain; pride preceding a fall; the inevitable nature of death, fate, or punishment; blindness; madness; taboos such as forbidden love, patricide, or incest), (3) Recurring characters (such as witches or ugly crones who cannibalize children, lame blacksmiths of preternatural skill, womanizing Don Juans, the hunted man, the femme fatale, the snob, the social climber, the wise old man as mentor or teacher, star-crossed lovers; the caring mother-figure, the helpless little old lady, the stern father-figure, the guilt-ridden figure searching for redemption, the braggart, the young star-crossed lovers, the bully, the villain in black, the oracle or prophet, the mad scientist, the underdog who emerges victorious, the mourning widow or women in lamentation), (4) Symbolic colors (green as a symbol for life, vegetation, or summer; blue as a symbol for water or tranquility; white or black as a symbol of purity; or red as a symbol of blood, fire, or passion) and so on. (5) Recurring images (such as blood, water, pregnancy, ashes, cleanness, dirtiness, caverns, phallic symbols, yonic symbols, the ruined tower, the rose or lotus, the lion, the snake, the eagle, the hanged man, the dying god that rises again, the feast or banquet, the fall from a great height). The study of these archetypes in literature is known as archetypal criticism or mythic criticism. Archetypes are also called universal symbols. Contrast with private symbol.

Homeric age of Greece

Another term for the Heroic Age of Greece

terminus ad quem

The latest possible date that a literary work could have been written, a potential ending point for dating a manuscript or text. Latin for "boundary up to this point."

cataloging

Creating long lists for poetic or rhetorical effect. The technique is common in epic literature, where conventionally the poet would devise long lists of famous princes, aristocrats, warriors, and mythic heroes to be lined up in battle and slaughtered. The technique is also common in the practice of giving illustrious genealogies ("and so-and-so begat so-and-so," or "x, son of y, son of z" etc.) for famous individuals. An example in American literature is Whitman's multi-page catalog of American types in section 15 of "Song of Myself." An excerpt appears below: The pure contralto sings in the organ loft, The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles its wild ascending lisp, The married and unmarried children ride home to their Thanksgiving dinner, The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, The deacons are ordained with crossed hands at the altar, The spinning-girl retreats and advances to the hum of the big wheel, The farmer stops by the bars as he walks on a First-day loaf and looks at the oats and rye, The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirmed case.... [etc.] One of the more humorous examples of cataloging appears in the Welsh Mabinogion. In one tale, "Culhwch and Olwen," the protagonist invokes in an oath all the names of King Arthur's companion-warriors, giving lists of their unusual attributes or abilities running to six pages.

protagonist

The main character in a work, on whom the author focuses most of the narrative attention. See character.

apocope

Deleting a syllable or letter from the end of a word. In The Merchant of Venice, one character says, "when I ope my lips let no dog bark," and the last syllable of open falls away into ope before the reader's eyes (1.1.93-94). In Troilus and Cressida, Shakespeare proclaims, "If I might in entreaties find success--/ As seld I have the chance--I would desire / My famous cousin to our Grecian tents" (4.5.148). Here the word seldom becomes seld. Apocope is an example of a rhetorical scheme. Note that some scholars modernize this word and refer to it as apocopation. Contrast with syncope.

etiological narrative

Etiology is the branch of philosophy dealing with the origins of things or how things came to be. An etiological narrative in folklore, mythology/religion, or literature is a story that explains how a social custom, geographical feature, animal, or plant came into existence. For instance, Ovid's Metamorphosis explains that so many serpents exist in India because Perseus spilled some Gorgon's blood there, and where each drop of blood fell, a serpent arose; Ovid also explains how Mount Olympus came to be so tall--giants and titans piled one mountain on top of another in order to reach the heavens and battle Jupiter. Unusual rock formations in Wales are often explained in etiological narratives. For instance, an unusual rock formation might be explained using a story about King Arthur riding his horse over the rocks, resulting in the geological formation. Some Scandinavian legends about trolls and giants are etiological narratives explaining how a mountain range or a valley came into existence. For instance, an ice-giant damned a river to create a lake, or a troll dug up a valley to create a moutain pass. Often toponyms and onomastic legends contain etiological functions. Contrast with eschatological narrative, above.

moira

Fate or the three fates in Greek mythology. Contrast with wyrd

symbolism

Frequent use of words, places, characters, or objects that mean something beyond what they are on a literal level. Often the symbol may be ambiguous in meaning. When multiple objects or characters each seem to have a restricted symbolic meaning, what often results is an allegory. Contrast with allegory, leit-motif and motif. Click here to download a pdf handout contrasting allegory and symbolism in greater detail.

oral formulaic

Having traits associated with works intended to be spoken aloud before an audience of listeners. Examples of oral formulaic traits are (1) repetition of words or passages, (2) use of epithets after or before a character's name, (3) mnemonic devices to help the speaker with recitation, (4) subdivision into sections suitable for recital during a single evening, (5) summaries of previous material in each section to help a listening audience keep track of complicated plot, and (6) episodic structure that allows the speaker to "ad lib" sections if he or she forgets a passage. Critics such as Miltman Parry have argued that literature such as Beowulf, the Tain, and Homer's Odyssey show signs of oral formulaic structure, which suggests the poems may have existed for centuries as recited materials (oral transmission) before being written down as a text.

parodos

In Greek tragedy, the ceremonial entrance of the chorus. Usually the chorus at this time chants a lyric relating to the main theme of the play.

antistrophe

In classical Greek literature like the play Antigonê and the Pindaric Odes, the strophe and the antistrophe were alternating stanzas sung aloud. In drama, the chorus would sing the strophe, probably with rhythmic pantomine or dance involved, and then the chorus would switch to the antistrophe. It is possible the dance or pantomine would then change directions or focus, alternating from the left or right side of the stage depending upon the strophe movement or the contrasting antistrophe movement.

strophe

In classical Greek literature like the play Antigonê and the Pindaric Odes, the strophe and the antistrophe were alternating stanzas sung aloud. In drama, the chorus would sing the strophe, probably with rhythmic pantomine or dance involved, and then the chorus would switch to the antistrophe. It is possible the dance or pantomine would then change directions or focus, alternating from the left or right side of the stage depending upon the strophe movement or the contrasting antistrophe movement.

additive monster

In contrast with the composite monster, mythologists and folklorists use the label additive monster to describe a creature from mythology or legend that has an altered number of body parts rather than body parts from multiple animals added together. For instance, the Scandinavian Ettin, a troll or giant with two heads, is an additive monster. Sleipnir, the magical horse in Norse mythology, is a regular horse, except it has eight legs. Deities and demons in the Hindu pantheon often have multiple arms or eyes. The term has also been loosely applied to fantastic creatures that have modified limbs as well. For instance, the gyascutis is a fantastic medieval beast that resembles a sheep, except its limbs vary in length. Its front legs are drastically shortened, and its hind legs are drastically lengthened, which allows it to remain level as it grazes on the incline of steep hills.

theogony

In mythology, an account of the gods' origins and their genealogy. Click here for an example chart.

wish fulfillment

In psychoanalytic criticism, wish fulfillment refers to something in literature that satisfies the conscious or subconscious desires of either the creator or the reader of a work. A writer of action adventure stories, for instance, might imagine a male protagonist who is stronger, tougher, younger, and smarter than himself. This protagonist lives a sophisticated life of international intrigue; he woos exotic women and foils evil plots, doing all the things the writer himself cannot do. Readers sharing similar conscious or unconscious fantasies may be attracted to such stories to fulfill their own desires vicariously. Nearly all popular literature has some element of wish fulfillment in it. This phenomenon usually begins with children's literature and fairy tales ("and they lived happily ever after"). Some juvenile fantasy novels offer beautiful and exotic landscapes where the lines between good and evil are always clear and distinct, and where magic allows the characters to participate in or control awesome events. Crime novels may present readers with characters who live outside the constrictions of law and morality in a way the reader cannot. Harlequin romance novels or similar bodice-rippers promise whirlwind romance and steamy sex without unpleasant physical consequences or imperfect enjoyment. Western novels offer unspoiled naturalistic landscapes and lawless terrain far away from the pollution, litter, and legislative restrictions of the modern world. Aside from popular entertainment, the same element of wish fulfillment can appear in more serious literary works as well. Utopian literature fulfills our desires for a perfect society, even as it critiques the failures of real government. An atheistic critic might argue that religious narratives are another example of wish fulfillment, pointing out that stories of eternal life in paradise for the good fulfills humanity's desire to avoid death, that tales of angels or benevolent spirits fulfill our desires to be loved, protected, and watched over, that descriptions of hell or apocalypse fulfill our desires for all criminals and wrong-doers to be punished and the imperfections of the world wiped away. Wish fulfillment is not limited to positive desires. Freud speaks of thanatos (the death wish), a subconscious desire to reject life and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The Oedipal complex is a subconscious desire to murder or destroy a father-figure and incestuously take his sexual role with the mother. Through psychological projection, viewers may sublimate destructive desires by placing it on the characters in a tragedy, "enjoying" a healthy orgy of grief and catharsis. Readers may also project their own subconscious impulses toward hateful or forbidden behavior onto the villain, marveling at the antagonist's imaginary crimes and paradoxically reveling in the bad guy's eventual punishment at a safe distance. Note that clever writers might create characters and imagine these characters with sufficient psychological detail to suggest elements of fictional wish fulfillment in them, as if an imaginary person had psychological depth of her own. For instance, Chaucer creates the fictional Wife of Bath, an aging pilgrim seeking her sixth husband while on pilgrimage. The Wife tells a tale to the other pilgrims. Her narrative includes a fairy tale hag who embodies the desires of the Wife herself. This hag wins the love of a handsome young knight, gains dominance over him in the marriage, and through his love and submission, magically transforms herself into a young woman again. These desires might correspond to the fantasies of the Wife of Bath herself as a fictional storyteller. See also escapist literature.

collective unconscious

In twentieth-century Jungian Psychology, this term refers to a shared group of archetypes (atavistic and universal images, cultural symbols, and recurring situations dealing with the fundamental facts of human life) passed along to each generation to the next in folklore and stories or generated anew by the way must face similar problems to those our ancestors faced. Within a culture, the collective unconscious forms a treasury of powerful shared images and symbols found in our dreams, art stories, myths, and religious icons. See more detailed discussion under archetypal criticism.

mimesis

Mimesis is usually translated as "imitation" or "representation," though the concept is much more complex than that and doesn't translate easily into English. It is an imitation or representation of something else rather than an attempt to literally duplicate the original. For instance, Aristotle in The Poetics defined tragedy as "the imitation [mimesis] of an action." In his sense, both poetry and drama are attempts to take an instance of human action and represent or re-present its essence while translating it into a new "medium" of material. For example, a play about World War II is an attempt to take the essence of an actual, complex historical event involving millions of people and thousands of square miles over several years and recreate that event in a simplified representation involving a few dozen people in a few thousand square feet over a few hours. The play would be a mimesis of that historic event using stage props, lighting, and individual actors to convey the sense of what World War II was to the audience. In the same way, the process of mimesis might involve creating a film about World War II (translating the event into images projected onto a flat screen or monitor using chemical images on a strip of photosynthetic film), or writing a poem about World War II would constitute an attempt at distilling that meaning into syllables, stress, verse, and diction. Picasso might attempt to embody warfare as a montage of destruction--his painting Guernica is the result. The degree to which each form of art accurately embodies the essence of its subject determines (for many classical theorists of art) the degree of its success. Additionally, mimesis may involve ecphrasis--the act of translating art from one type of media into another. A classical musician or composer might be entranced by an earlier bit of folkloric art, the legend of William Tell. He attempts to imitate or represent the stirring emotions of that story by creating a stirring song that has the same effect; thus, the famous "The William Tell Overture" results. A story has been translated into a musical score. It is also possible to attempt mimesis of one medium into the same medium. For instance, American musician Aaron Copland was inspired by the simplicity of Quaker music, so he attempted to re-create that music mimetically in "Appalachian Spring," much like he earlier attempted mimetically to capture the American spirit in "Fanfare for the Common Man." In literature, ecphrasis is likewise used to describe the way literature describes or mimics other media (other bits of art, architecture, music and so on). For instance, "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is largely Keats' poetic attempt to capture the eternal and changeless nature of visual art depicted on an excavated piece of pottery. Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" involves an elaborate architectural recreation of three pagan temples, and the artwork on the walls of those temples, as well as the verbal construction of an entire coliseum to enclose a knightly combat. These are both ecphrases seeking to turn one type of non-verbal art into verbal art through mimetic principles.

buskins

Originally called kothorni in Greek, the word buskins is a Renaissance term for the elegantly laced boots worn by actors in ancient Greek tragedy. The buskins later became elevator shoes that made the actor wearing them unusually tall to emphasize the royal status or importance of the character. Contrast with soccus.

kothorni

Originally called kothorni in Greek, the word buskins is a Renaissance term for the elegantly laced boots worn by actors in ancient Greek tragedy. The buskins later became elevator shoes that made the actor wearing them unusually tall to emphasize the royal status or importance of the character. Contrast with soccus.

folklore

Sayings, verbal compositions, stories, and social rituals passed along by word of mouth rather than written down in a text. Folklore includes superstitions; modern "urban legends"; proverbs; riddles; spells; nursery rhymes; songs; legends or lore about the weather, animals, and plants; jokes and anecdotes; rituals at births, deaths, marriages, and yearly celebrations; and traditional dance and plays performed during holidays or at communal gatherings. Many works of literature originated in folktales before the narratives were written down. Examples in American culture include the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree; George Washington throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac river; Paul Bunyon cutting lumber with his blue ox, Babe; Pecos Bill roping a twister; and Johnny Appleseed planting apples across the west over a 120-year period. Many fairy tales in Europe originate in folklore, such as "Snow White" and "Jack and the Beanstalk." In modern days, much academic work with folklore focuses on reports of UFO abductions, the Chupacabra [goat-chewing monster] legends of Mexico, urban legends, and outbreaks of public hysteria regarding nonexistent mass ritualized child-abuse and cannibalism. Contrast with mythology. See also folkloric motifs and folktales.

dramatic unities

See Unities, three. The sense that all the elements in a piece of writing fit together to create a harmonious effect.

theomarchy

Strife or warfare among the gods, especially in the sense of this activity as a subplot (overplot?) in the Homeric poems such as The Iliad.

foreshadowing

Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. Foreshadowing often provides hints about what will happen next. For instance, a movie director might show a clip in which two parents discuss their son's leukemia. The camera briefly changes shots to do an extended close-up of a dying plant in the garden outside, or one of the parents might mention that another relative died on the same date. The perceptive audience sees the dying plant, or hears the reference to the date of death, and realizes this detail foreshadows the child's death later in the movie. Often this foreshadowing takes the form of a noteworthy coincidence or appears in a verbal echo of dialogue. Other examples of foreshadowing include the conversation and action of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth, or the various prophecies that Oedipus hears during Oedipus Rex.

catastrophe

The "turning downward" of the plot in a classical tragedy. By tradition, the catastrophe occurs in the fourth act of the play after the climax. (See tragedy.) Freytag's pyramid illustrates visually the normal charting of the catastrophe in a plotline. CATCH: A lyric poem or song meant to be sung as a round, with the words arranged in each line so that the audience will hear a hidden (often humorous or ribald) message as the groups of singers sing their separate lyrics and space out the wording of the poem. For example, one might write a song in which the first line contained the words "up," the word "look" appears in the middle of the third line, the word "dress" appears in the second line, and the word "her" appears in the middle of the fourth line. When the song or poem is sung as a round by four groups of singers, the word order and timing is arranged so that the singers create the hidden phrase "look up her dress" as they sing, to the amusement of the audience as they listen to an otherwise innocent set of lyrics. Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time" is an example of a catch, and when William Lawes adapted the poem to music for Milton's masque Comus, it became one of the most popular drinking songs of the 1600s (Damrosche 844-45).

arête

The Greek term arête implies a humble and constant striving for perfection and self-improvement combined with a realistic awareness that such perfection cannot be reached. As long as an individual strives to do and be the best, that individual has arête. As soon as the individual believes he has actually achieved arête, however, he or she has lost that exalted state and fallen into hubris, unable to recognize personal limitations or the humble need to improve constantly.

mystoi

The Greek term for mystery cults

xenia

The Greek term for the Laws of Hospitality. The custom in classical Greece and other ancient cultures that, if a traveler comes to a strange town, he can ask for food, shelter, and gifts to help him on his journey. In Greek tradition, the host was considered responsible for his guest's comfort and safety, and a breach of those laws of hospitality was thought to anger Zeus (Roman Jupiter), the king of the gods.

aidos

The Greek term for the great shame felt by a hero after failure.

animism

The belief that animals, plants, and objects have their own souls or spirits inhabiting them, as in modern Japanese religions like Shinto or in many older hunter-gatherer societies in Africa, Polynesia, and Australia. Many plant spirits in classical Greek mythology probably originate in earlier animistic belief, such as dryads and hamadryads (tree-spirits), Oreiads (mountain pine-tree spirits), Meliades (fruit-trees), and Meliai (ash tree and honey-hive spirits). Other animistic spirits in Greek myth include the Oeneads and Krinaiai (well-spirits and fountain-spirits), Nephelai (cloud-spirits), Naiads (water-spirits), and Ithakiai (cave-spring spirits). See also Solar Myth and vegetationsdämon.

oneiromancy

The belief that dreams could predict the future, or the act of predicting the future by analyzing dreams. Elements of oneiromantic belief may have influenced the genre of medieval dream visions, especially Biblical passages regarding divine premonitions appearing in the form of dreams. Likewise, in Renaissance literature such as Shakespeare's plays, Shakespeare readily adapted oneiromantic beliefs into the dreams of his characters to create foreshadowing.

mythography

The commentary, writings, and interpretations added to myths. Medieval writers, such as the four anonymous scribes collectively called the "Vatican Mythographers," would take Greek and Roman myths and write elaborate Christianized allegories to explain the meaning of the text. Another example of medieval mythography is the Ovid moralisée, a retelling of Ovid's Metamorphoses in which French scribes interpret the legends as Christological commentary on the New Testament.

period

The division of literature into chronological categories of historical period or time as opposed to the categorization of literature according to genre, i.e., categories based on conventional features shared between works of similar type. For instance, if I were organizing my bookshelf, and I placed all the books from the early 1800s on one shelf, and all the books written in the Victorian period on the next shelf, and all the twentieth-century books on the last shelf, I have organized my literature by periodization. If, however, I placed all the books containing tragic drama together on one shelf, ands placed all my Western novels on another shelf, and put all the poetry collections on the last shelf, I have organized my books according to genre. (Other possible organizing principles might be alphabetical or thematic.) Periodization is not always clear. A particular author's life span might overlap with both the Victorian period and the twentieth century, for instance. Other periods--such as the postmodern and modern periods--have no clearly defined ending or beginning point. Still, the intellectual exercise can be useful for thinking about how particular literary artists fit (or don't fit) into an era and for thinking about the zeitgeist or "spirit-of-the-age" in which they live.

terminus a quo

The earliest possible date that a literary work could have been written, a potential starting point for dating a manuscript or text. Latin for "boundary from that point."

setting

The general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs; the setting of an episode or scene within a work is the particular physical location in which it takes place. For example, the general setting of Joyce's "The Dead," is a quay named Usher's Island, west of central Dublin in the early 1900s, and the initial setting is the second floor apartment of the Misses Morkan. Setting can be a central or peripheral factor in the meaning of a work. The setting is usually established through description--but sometimes narration or dialogue also reveals the location and time.

conflict

The opposition between two characters (such as a protagonist and an antagonist), between two large groups of people, or between the protagonist and a larger problem such as forces of nature, ideas, public mores, and so on. Conflict may also be completely internal, such as the protagonist struggling with his psychological tendencies (drug addiction, self-destructive behavior, and so on); William Faulkner famously claimed that the most important literature deals with the subject of "the human heart in conflict with itself." Conflict is the engine that drives a plot. Examples of narratives driven mainly by conflicts between the protagonist and nature include Jack London's "To Build a Fire" (in which the Californian struggles to save himself from freezing to death in Alaska) and Stephen Crane's "The Open Boat" (in which shipwrecked men in a lifeboat struggle to stay alive and get to shore). Examples of narratives driven by conflicts between a protagonist and an antagonist include Mallory's Le Morte D'arthur, in which King Arthur faces off against his evil son Mordred, each representing civilization and barbarism respectively. Examples of narratives driven by internal struggles include Daniel Scott Keyes' "Flowers for Algernon," in which the hero struggles with the loss of his own intelligence to congenital mental retardation, and Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," in which the protagonist ends up struggling with his own guilt after committing a murder. In complex works of literature, multiple conflicts may occur at once. For instance, in Shakespeare's Othello, one level of conflict is the unseen struggle between Othello and the machinations of Iago, who seeks to destroy him. Another level of conflict is Othello's struggle with his own jealous insecurities and his suspicions that Desdemona is cheating on him.

Golden Age of Greece

The period around 400-499 BCE, when Athens was at its height of prestige, wealth, and military power. This term is often used as a contrast with the Heroic Age of Greece (c. 1200-800 BCE).

oral transmission

The spreading or passing on of material by word of mouth. Before the development of writing and the rise of literacy, oral transmission and memorization was the most common means by which narrative and poetic art could spread through a culture. See ballad, bard, epic, folklore, oral-formulaic, etc.

Jungian psychology

The term refers to the theories of the Swiss psychologist, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). Jung was a student of Freud, but he rejected Freud's ideas of infantile sexuality (i.e., the Oedipal Complex, wish fulfillment, thanatos, etc.) and he held that Freud's psychoanalytic process was too simple, too concrete, and too focused on the individual child's development rather than the collective development of cultures as a whole. Working with the insights from anthropological studies like J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough (1890-1915), Jung developed an alternative concept called the collective unconscious, a shared collection of transcultural images and symbols known as archetypes that would resonate powerfully within the human psyche. The study of how Jungian psychology relates to literature is called archetypal criticism. Note that the <J> is pronounced like a /y/ in Jung's name. For more information, see archetype.

monogenesis

The theory that, if two similar stories, words, or images appear in two different geographic regions or languages, they are actually related to each other rather than appearing independently. Either one was the original source, and the others adopted it later, or all the surviving examples come from an older (possibly lost) source. Contrast with polygenesis.

polygenesis

The theory that, if two similar stories, words, or images appear in two different geographic regions or languages, they are actually unrelated to each other. Each one arose independently. For an analogy, in both early Mayan architecture and in Egyptian architecture, pyramids are striking engineering features. However, since no contact took place between the two cultures, archeologists believe each group invented the design independently rather than adopting it from a single source (such as one group borrowing it from the other). Circumstances such as the lack of mortar, concrete, or flying buttresses ensured that both Mayans and Egyptians would come up with a wide-base structure to support any large edifice--leading to pyramid designs by default. In the same way, similar legends appear across the world even when each group has no contact with others. Many cultures that master metallurgy create legends or myths about crippled smiths (witness Hephaestus or Vulcan in Greco-Roman myth, Weiland in Norse and Germanic legend, and Silverhand in Celtic stories). Cultures that do not master metal-smithing do not create crippled craftsmen-gods in their pantheons. This lack can be explained by the theory of polygenesis. Men who are crippled cannot join the hunters in gathering food or join the farmers in digging irrigation ditches, so they tend to stay in the village and work as craftsmen, developing skills that ultimately seem magical to the untrained without these years of experience. However, the archetype of the crippled craftsman/god does not appear in cultures without the technology of metal-working. In the same way, flood-narratives appear across many cultures--Noah's flood in the Judeo-Christian tradition as well as in Welsh, Chaldean, and Greek legends. Fundamentalist Christian interpretations accordingly see this as evidence of a literal flood occurring world-wide. Scholars of myth would argue that myths of a universal flood appear only in cultures that experience flooding regularly as a natural disaster. Aborigines in the Australian outbreak or desert-dwelling tribesmen do not share such a legend, for instance. This leads to the idea that these flood-narratives arose independently in different places through polygenesis. See also archetype. Contrast with monogenesis.

allegory

The word derives from the Greek allegoria ("speaking otherwise"). The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level. An allegorical reading usually involves moral or spiritual concepts that may be more significant than the actual, literal events described in a narrative. Typically, an allegory involves the interaction of multiple symbols, which together create a moral, spiritual, or even political meaning. The act of interpreting a story as if each object in it had an allegorical meaning is called allegoresis. If we wish to be more exact, an allegory is an act of interpretation, a way of understanding, rather than a genre in and of itself. Poems, novels, or plays can all be allegorical, in whole or in part. These allegories can be as short as a single sentence or as long as a ten volume book. The label "allegory" comes from an interaction between symbols that creates a coherent meaning beyond that of the literal level of interpretation. Probably the most famous allegory in English literature is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678), in which the hero named Christian flees the City of Destruction and travels through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and finally arrives at the Celestial City. The entire narrative is a representation of the human soul's pilgrimage through temptation and doubt to reach salvation in heaven. Medieval works were frequently allegorical, such as the plays Mankind and Everyman. Other important allegorical works include mythological allegories like Apuleius' tale of Cupid and Psyche in The Golden Ass and Prudentius' Psychomachiae. More recent non-mythological allegories include Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Butler's Erewhon, and George Orwell's Animal Farm. The following illustrative passage comes from J. A. Cuddon's Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory, 3rd edition (Penguin Books, 1991). I have Americanized the British spelling and punctuation: To distinguish more clearly we can take the old Arab fable of the frog and the scorpion, who met one day on the bank of the River Nile, which they both wanted to cross. The frog offered to ferry the scorpion over on his back provided the scorpion promised not to sting him. The scorpion agreed so long as the frog would promise not to drown him. The mutual promises exchanged, they crossed the river. On the far bank the scorpion stung the frog mortally. "Why did you do that?" croaked the frog, as it lay dying. "Why?" replied the scorpion, "We're both Arabs, aren't we?" If we substitute for a frog a "Mr. Goodwill" or a "Mr. Prudence," and for the scorpion "Mr. Treachery" or "Mr. Two-Face," and make the river any river and substitute for "We're both Arabs . . ." "We're both men . . ." we turn the fable [which illustrates human tendencies by using animals as illustrative examples] into an allegory [a narrative in which each character and action has symbolic meaning]. On the other hand, if we turn the frog into a father and the scorpion into a son (boatman and passenger) and we have the son say "We're both sons of God, aren't we?", then we have a parable (if a rather cynical one) about the wickedness of human nature and the sin of parricide. (22) Contrast allegory with fable, parable, and symbolism, below, or click here to download a PDF handout contrasting these terms. Cf. charactonym.

mystery cults

Unlike the official "public cults" dedicated to the Olympian gods in ancient Greece and Rome, a number of religious practices involved chthonic deities (like Demeter) and imported foreign gods (Ishtar, Osiris, Mithras, etc.). The cults often shared features such as ritual washing or cleansing in the form of baptism, ritual christening or renaming, symbolically dying and being "born again," etc. Possibly some may have offered the hope of an afterlife through metempsychosis (unlike standard Greek and Roman belief which emphasized a gloomy stay in the underworld). Others--in the case of Dionysian worshippers--ritually "slew" the god and ate him or drank his blood symbolically in the form of wine. Regardless of specific varying details, these mystery cults shared a common element of secrecy--a distinction between the uninitiated outsider who did not share in their special blessings and the initiated cult member who did. The cult rituals were held to be so sacred that it was blasphemous to reveal them to outsiders, even to speak of them, describe them, or write them down in any way. The rites were often held in inaccessible areas far from the local city--on mountain-tops or sea-shores or in catacombs. Some, like the mystery cult of Demeter, were open to any prospective members regardless of race, gender, or nationality as long as they spoke sufficient Greek to participate in the rituals. Others were open to certain professions, such as the cult of Mithras which only allowed soldiers to join after an initial baptism in bull's blood. Others were restricted by family (such as local versions of the Lykian wolf cult) or partly restricted by gender (such as the maenads of Dionysus).

rhapsodoi

Wandering poet-singers in the Homeric age of Greece--the equivalent of a bard in the Celtic tradition. These rhapsodoi usually sang or chanted while accompanying themselves on the lyre. Homer is traditionally said to be such a figure. The rhapsodoi probably engaged in oral-formulaic poetry rather than writing their works down.

myth

While common English usage often equates "myth" with "falsehood," scholars use the term slightly differently. A myth is a traditional tale of deep cultural significance to a people in terms of etiology, eschatology, ritual practice, or models of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. The myth often (but not always) deals with gods, supernatural beings, or ancestral heroes. The culture creating or retelling the myth may or may not believe that the myth refers to literal or factual events, but it values the mythic narrative regardless of its historical authenticity for its (conscious or unconscious) insights into the human condition or the model it provides for cultural behavior. See also folklore, legend, mythography, mythos, and mythology.

didactic literature

Writing that is "preachy" or seeks overtly to convince a reader of a particular point or lesson. Medieval homilies and Victorian moral essays are often held up as examples of didactic literature, but one might argue that all literature is didactic to one extent or another since the written word frequently implies or suggests an authorial attitude. Sometimes, the lesson is overtly religious, as in the case of sermons or in literature like Milton's Paradise Lost, which seeks to "justify God's ways to men." In a more subtle way, much of Romantic literature hints at a critique of urbanized and mechanized life in 19th-century London. See homily, propaganda, Victorian.