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Greek Myths - Essay

Greek Myths

Before defining the term "mythology" one needs to define the meaning of the word "myth". The word itself comes from the Greek "mythos" which originally meant "speech" or "discourse" but which later came to mean "fable" or "legend". In this document the word "myth" will be defined as a story of forgotten or vague origin, basically religious or supernatural in nature, which seeks to explain or rationalize one or more aspects of the world or a society. Furthermore, in the context of this document, all myths are, at some stage, actually believed to be true by the peoples of the societies that used or originated the myth. Our definition is thus clearly distinguished from the use of the word ...

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nature.
The word mythology has two related meanings. Firstly it refers to a collection of myths that together form a mythological system. Thus one can speak of "Egyptian Mythology", "Indian Mythology", "Maori Mythology" or "Greek Mythology". In this sense one is describing a system of myths which were used by a particular society at some particular time in human history. It is also possible to group mythologies in other ways. For example one can group them geographically and then speak of "Oceanic Mythology", "Oriental Mythology" and "African Mythology". A second meaning of the term mythology is the academic study of myths and systems of myths in general. The types of individual myths and the purpose of mythology Broadly speaking myths and mythologies seek to rationalize and explain the universe and all that is in it. Thus, they have a similar function to science, theology, religion and history in modern societies. Systems of myths have provided a cosmological and historical ...

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Greek Myths. (2004, June 26). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Greek-Myths/10113

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"Greek Myths." Essayworld.com. June 26, 2004. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Greek-Myths/10113.

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Added: 6/26/2004 08:45:26 PM
Category: Miscellaneous
Type: Free Paper
Words: 1096
Pages: 4

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