For Next Week: Read Morales, Classical Mythology, Introduction & Chapters 1-2, and Questions Below

For next week's class, be sure to read Chapters 1-2 of Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction, and answer TWO of the questions below for class. Answer each question with a few sentences or a short paragraph each. I'm more interested in how you answer these questions than in what you say. So for example, don't give me a simple yes/no answer, and don't try to figure out what the 'right' answer is. These are designed to get you thinking 'inside' the book rather than simply skimming over it. Bring these questions to class with you next week, since you'll turn them in after class. 

Q1: What does it mean to read a myth as an "emblem, rather than narrative" (9)? Why do some people appropriate myths more for what they embody or represent, rather than the actual stories they tell? Can you think of examples in our own culture where we do that?

Q2: Morales writes that "classical myth is often talked about as if it were a homogenous and static category. Instead, as we have seen, the ideological impact of myths changed within the classical world" (14). Why is it crucial for myths to change and become heterogenous throughout time? Why might that make them "myths"?

Q3: Discussing the frescoes in Pompeii in Chapter 2, Morales suggests that "The house makes you work hard at reading the myths and how they interrelate" (21). Why might context also change how we read a myth? Why is where a myth is located as important as what it is?

Q4: Why is the image of Prometheus in Rockerfeller Center (nicknamed "Leaping Louie") so controversial? Why did people criticize it by saying, "Pardon me, but is that meant to be permanent?" (35). What rules did it seem to break about art or mythology? Is it a legitimate criticism?