Odyssey and the 5 Monolithic Theories

The five monolithic theories of myths according to G.S. Kirk are: Nature, Aetiology, Charter, Creative Era, and Ritual. Within the entirety of the Odyssey are many different sub-myths. In this blog post I will attempt to give examples of each of the 5 monolithic theories in the form of those sub-myths from the Odyssey which can be considered and overall myth, of sorts.

• Nature- Myths of Nature personified

• Book 10, Lines 16-61
• This is a continuation of Odysseus telling his adventures to the Phaecians. In this section we find out that after escaping from the Cyclops, Odysseus ended up with Aeolus, the master of the winds. After telling Aeolus what had happened to them so far and asking for help, Aeolus agrees and binds all the winds within the skin of a full-grown ox except for the western wind which would blow the weary travelers home. He then gives the skin to Odysseus. However, just before they reach home, Odysseus takes a nap and his men decided to see what's inside the sack. When they open it all the other winds are released and they end up being blown back to Aeolus's palace, who refuses to help them again. I think this is a nature myth because while the winds aren't necessarily personified, they are controlled by a master appointed by Zeus. In this way Aeolus, since he controls all the winds, can be thought of as being part of those winds himself. This myth also focuses on the natural phenomenon itself, the wind blowing them home and then once released blowing them off course, rather than an angry god influencing the winds.

• Aetiology- Explanation Myths

• Book 18, Lines 1-124
• This portion tells of when Odysseus has finally made it back to Ithaca and he basically ends up fighting a street urchin because he really doesn't look very kingly when he arrives. In my mind aetiology myth are myths that just tell a story without any true lesson but rather they give necessary exposition which gives background knowledge. I think that this part of they Odyssey is just exposition which is good because not everything can be packed with meaning or deeply insightful or else the reader gets frustrated. So I think, at least in the context of the greater long story of the Odyssey, moments like this vignette are necessary to tell what happened without packing it full of lessons and meaning. The background knowledge that this gives is that this is how Odysseus gets into the palace. The princes (who have long overstayed their welcome by this point) instigate and gamble on the fight between Odysseus and the street urchin. When Odysseus easily wins, they offer him food and Telemachus, recognizing him finagles him into the palace. Without this section, we wouldn't know how Odysseus ultimately got into the palace in order to roust all the suitors from his kingdom.

• Creative Era (Return to the Dream-time)- Myths that seem to take you back in time

• Book 3, Lines 113- 127
• In this portion, King Nestor recounts to Telemachus the story of the siege on Troy. When I began reading King Nestor's account, I felt like I was being transported back in time. For the characters the time that is being remembered isn't that far in the past but it feels farther away as he tells it. That feeling of going back in time is why I thought this would make an excellent example of a Creative Era myth. During his telling, Nestor talks about seeing Athena set two men feuding with "eyes afire"  and how "Zeus was brooding over us, poised to seal our doom..." and it's like he could actually perceive the presence of those gods on the field of battle. To us in modern times, this seems ridiculous but this is just one example of how deeply the gods were woven into Ancient Greek life. The people saw them in their everyday lives, maybe not literally but they perceived the ripples of what they deemed the gods' thoughts, feelings and actions.

• Ritual- Myths surrounding rituals
• Book 11, Lines 25-731
• This is basically the majority of Book 11 when Odysseus visits the land of the dead and sees and talks to all the different dead people. I label this myth a ritual myth not because of who he talks to but rather what he does at the beginning. Before he can go to the Land of the Dead, Odysseus must make an offering to the dead and he promises to "slaughter a barren heifer in [his] halls, the best [he] had and to load a pyre with treasures" as payment for the information he was seeking. This myth doesn't come out and fully explain why this was necessary but it shows that this was something that was understood that had to be done. This kind of practice of making offerings to the dead is still common in some cultures as well as rituals to seek guidance from those who have died. 

• Charter Myth- Myths explaining traditions
• Book 9, Lines 320- 460
• This is when Odysseus is captured by the Cyclops and escapes by saying his name is Nobody. While this didn't engender a tradition in Odysseus's time it is now commonplace that when you don't want to give your name you say "Nobody" and by extension when you don't want to say what you're doing you say "nothing."

Honors Retreat- Part the Second

This was another FABULOUS experience. As part of the Honors Retreat we went to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival! I had never been so my eyes were bouncing around everywhere trying to see everything at once, which was pretty much impossible. I took tons of pictures and some video which I have displayed below and since a picture is worth a thousand words...


This was the first thing that I viewed. This was a performance and I have video below of him just running his spiel. The reason I took the picture was so I had a record of his poster which reads:

"Proclaimed by:

Kings* Sultans * Potentates * Highpriests * Superluminaries * and Very High Muckitymucks to Be Ye Most Marficent * Stupendifying * Omnihemispherical * Magnitudnous and Volumystic

Ye

GREAT and ONLY

Dr. H. DUMPE L.B.P [Loud Bald Person]

Physician turned Magician

Master of:

MATH

MAGIC
MYSTERY

FIRE!

Administrator of:

Leechings * Bleedings * Jumbo Physics

Note: not applicable in Madagascar"

I convinced Dr. Deka to try on some leather underbust corsets with me and they were actually rather comfortable to wear. However, I wasn't really willing to pay $200 for one.

This was the musical performance that I saw. Her music was really great and both restful and uplifting. It really made me just want to stand up and dance.

This was the parade that ran through just after we listened to the violinist and it was really great. There is both video and pictures because my phone was having issues taking one long video. I loved how into it these people got, they stayed in character the whole time and it didn't look like they were forcing it, they genuinely seemed to enjoy themselves. Needless to say, it was awesome.

 Me trying on a steampunk-esque ear armor. Once I had it on, I kind of really liked it. I may need to invest in some of these at some point in the future...

















The third performance I viewed was a choreographed "battle" where the actors were portraying a version of a scene from "Robin Hood Prince of Thieves" where Robin and Little John are fighting at the top of the waterfall for dominance. In this case, they fought on a bridge and there was much joking and entertainment in their performance. There wasn't a ton of sword- clashing but it was still really cool to watch.

Left- One of my group members trying on a kilt (he was advised by the shopkeeper to take off his shirt since it clashed, he declined)

Right- Two gentlemen dressed up as Templar Knights who let me take their picture

 







Maille Art = so superbly awesome!!!! I totally wanted to wear some of these

 

 

 

This was just some of what I saw. I repeat, totally awesome experience and I can't wait to go back and explore some more. Signing off!

Jessie Jane

Honors Retreat- Part the First

Today was a workshop from Bob Charron, an instructor from the St. Martin's Academy for Medieval Arms. Let that sink in a minute and absorb the awesome of that statement. In a word: Epic best describes that class. Let me list a few of the things that we learned:

• The medieval education system was universal, it was the baseline for everyone, everywhere
• Astronomy was very important to Medieval culture since they were an agrarian society
• This era was not squalid, it actually had a great deal of splendor with everything brightly painted and gilt in gold, not just plain stone
• The French term for "downward blow" is fendente which literally translates to "break your teeth"
• Modern metallurgy has found that quenching in blood and milk wasn't just superstition, it actually gives the metal a certain crystalline structure due to the rate at which these different liquids quench he metal
• Knights were itinerant judges, lawyers and jurors because the law was their #1 occupation with fighting being #2
• This society was very lawful and the laws were very clear. The goal for the everyday citizen was to always follow the law
• In sword fighting you always want to be the smaller number (will come back to this later)
• The first thing for children to learn was how to make a mind palace (so cool!)
• Math, music, astronomy are all involved in swordplay
• Swordplay is not just "technique" it's an artistic science that involves other sciences
• Because it's an art, if you're thinking about it, you die
• They believed that you had 3 souls
• Animal soul- social interaction, locomotion, etc.
• Contemplative soul- thinking, technical
• Plant soul- autonomic processes in the body
• In order to fight well you have to engage your animal soul

OK, that was a lot. However, that's only a small part of what we learned at the beginning. Then we got into actually playing with the swords (yay!). To sum up several hours of work: we learned blocks, strikes, how to steal our opponent's sword, how to place our feet, how to "be the smaller number" and a whole ton of other things. Out of all that, the thing I want to really talk about is the whole "be the smaller number" thing.

"Be the smaller number" means that between you and your opponent you make the least amount of motions (hand and feet), move the smallest distance or take the smallest amount of times. All of these are numbers and when you add all of these numbers together on both yours and your opponent's side, you want to be the smaller number and if you are that smaller number, then you have won. Here's an example: If I do and overhand blow while taking a step and my opponent simply takes a step back, they win because I have completed more motions and I had to cover more distance. In this case time=distance, if I create more distance then I have more time to move and if my sword is simply moving from scabbard to strike rather than over the shoulder to strike then it's less distance, meaning less time, meaning I would win if I was the smaller number. Once we understood this principle, we got way better at doing the drills.

The other thing I want to talk really quickly about is that we had to be using our "animal soul" in order to do this well. This meant that when we were completing the drills, there was no talking because if we were talking then we were using our contemplative soul. After about the first 20 minutes, there wasn't anymore awkward giggling or chatting, Charron would give us a command and we followed it immediately. We made eye contact with our partner and completed the prescribed motion on command. It gave me a whole new respect for the training style of the time and I feel like if this philosophy of the different souls was applied in other sports, it might make us more accurate in our play because we wouldn't be thinking, we would be moving and simply trusting our bodies. This is something I've tried to teach to people I work on swimming with and I think that this animal soul is the best way to explain trusting your body to move naturally because your body can do many things but it is bounded by your brain or you contemplative soul as the medieval man would say.

I hope that was at least somewhat understandable. It was a really great experience and I hope I get to try that again. Thanks for reading my ramblings!

Jessie Jane

Does "Le Morte D'Arthur" Epically Obey Aristotle???

In some ways "Le Morte D'Arthur" is very much the Aristotelian definition of an Epic but in others it is definitely it's own story. The best way for me to visualize this is in list form, so here goes:

Ways Yes:

• Covers an incredible length of time
• Can be classified as a Tragedy (for the most part)
• complete
• possesses magnitude
• can be divided into episodes
• can be narrated
• admirable
• effects katharsis (in my opinion anyway)
• However, it doesn't necessarily use pleasurable language but we'll come back to that.
• Has both simple and complex plots
• Merlin makes everything complicated (see Arthur's conception)
• When Arthur pulled the sword from the stone it was a pretty straightforward part of the story
• There is most DEFINITELY suffering
• Excellent description and detail allowing the reader (or listener as the case may be) to really visualize what is happening in the story
• Has plots AND subplots
• Written in third person

Ways No:

• Is not really written poetically but rather like someone chronicling the events around them
• There are definitely some inconsistencies within the story
• People "coming back from the dead" because the author apparently forgot he killed them off
• There could be an argument made that this book is not really a narration because it could, theoretically be acted out, however, I think that would result in something akin the Harry Potter movies with parts of the story being lost.
• There is no Chorus commenting on the events in the story
• In this story it almost feels like the author wants the reader to form their own opinions about the events rather than simply giving them one. Sir Thomas Malory is making it harder and better for us as the reading audience
• Not really constructed in a dramatic way
• Like I mentioned earlier it is more like a chronicle. 
• However, there are vignette-like sequences where there is a complication, a change of fortune, and a resolution, just as Aristotle described
• There is no one complication, change of fortune, and resolution for the whole story

In my opinion, I think that "Le Morte D'Arthur" is an Epic even if it doesn't conform to all of Aristotle's standards. As we discussed in class, these are the standards which Aristotle observed to have the most success in his time. In our time, there are certain aspects of the story that Aristotle would find "wrong" that would actually do pretty well in our time such as the lack of a chorus. Can you imagine The Avengers (a movie most people would consider "epic") being narrated with the addition of a group of characters whose sole function was fourth wall breaks to comment on the situation? No, you can't, because it would make no sense for us today. Here's another example, say there was a reading of the entire Harry Potter series, but it had been changed so that Dobby appeared in the first book and he commented on all the situations all the way through the 7th book (meaning he wouldn't die, yay!). How weird would that be?

In our time, I believe that what defines an Epic has changed somewhat so that, while "Le Morte D'Arthur" doesn't necessarily completely obey Aristotelian principles, it still touches us and sticks with us because it conforms to how WE see Epics today.

Jessie Jane Out!