Mythology

Another strength of the book is how she organizes the myths in her seven parts: (1) Covers the complete pantheon of deities, including the lesser gods of Olympus and Earth and the later Roman additions, as well as the earliest heroes. (2) Retells the various tales of love, between mortals and the gods or each other, along with the Quest for the Golden Fleece and other early heroic adventures. (3) Focuses specifically on the greatest heroes, Perseus, Theseus and Hercules, with Atalanta thrown in the mix in a curious but understandable editorial decision by Hamilton. (4) Puts together Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid into a giant epic stretching from the Judgment of Paris to the founding of Roman, with the Odyssey and the tragedies of Euripides. (5) Tells about the great mythological families, namely the House of Atreus (Agamemnon), the Royal House of Thebes (Oedipus and Antigone), and the Royal House of Athens. (6) Covers all of the lesser myths, most notably Midas. (7) Goes off in a new direction, providing a very brief introduction to Norse mythology that seems woefully inadequate given the comprehensive compilation of classical mythology that precedes it.

I looked over other possibilities as a basic textbook for an introductory mythology course, but I keep coming back to this one. If you want analysis of these myths, then you certainly want to look elsewhere. But if you want a solid retelling of virtually every tale of classical mythology, then Edith Hamilton's volume is still at the top of the list.


MYTHOLOGY FOR THE REST OF US   January 25, 2000
no longer a customer
47 out of 51 found this review helpful

Long ago in pre-history, 1973 to be exact, in the age of vinyl records, before the Internet and Play Station and Cable T.V. and the almost insulting stuff that gets peddled to kids these days as entertainment, an acne faced 13 year old bought this book because, in those days, the cover had this guy holding a sword and a severed head on the front, (Perseus holding the head of Medusa), and I thought COOL! And I fell in love with these wonderful stories. I still have that much worn, much loved, much dog-eared paperback on my book shelves that later in life inspired me to read other myths of other times and places, which lead me to James Joyce, Flannery O'Connor and T.C.Boyle and a life-long head over heels romance with literature. Edith Hamilton's book is a good beginning for anyone at any age to begin, or continue, the remarkable adventure that is human story telling.


God and heroes   June 10, 2003
FrKurt Messick (Bloomington, IN USA)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful

Edith Hamilton's very popular 'Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes' is a very basic, very popular and very good text for the introduction of Greek and Roman mythology. This book by Hamilton, simply entitled 'Mythology' is an expansion of the material in the shorter book. Largely, however, it is a repetition of the same material.

In our Western culture, the term 'mythology' is most often equated with these tales, and Hamilton, first writing before World War II, has helped to reinforce that equation with the current generations of readers.

Those looking for the mythological stories of other cultures will be disappointed -- with the exception of a brief section on Norse mythology at the end (about five percent of the entire volume), it covers nothing outside the Greek and Roman pantheons. Of course, part of the difficulty of approaching mythology of other cultures is that, in many instances, it is not mythology to them; or, in the case of mythology, one needs a firmer grounding in the culture and religious aspects of that culture before the mythology becomes accessible.

Hamilton (raised, as I was astonished to discover, in Indiana, where I currently reside) studied at Bryn Mawr, and had a distinguished teacher career in addition to writing this useful text. Hamilton's writing is not complicated and very easy to follow -- this has made her texts selected often for high school and undergraduate courses in Greek and Roman mythology, more frequently perhaps than any other text produced in this century.

Hamilton begins the text with an essay giving an overview of what mythology is, and what the purpose of it was.

'Through it,' she wrote, 'we can retrace the path from civilised man who lives so far from nature, to man who lived in close companionship with nature; and the real interest of the myths is that they lead us back to a time when the world was young and people had a connection with the earth, with trees and seas and flowers and hills, unlike anything we ourselves can feel.'

She proceeds with a brief history of the development of Greek mythology, the origins of the stories lost in the mists of time. She tells of the influences of Greek thought on subsequent developments in thought and religion: 'Saint Paul said the invisible must be understood by the visible. That was not a Hebrew idea, it was Greek.' Unlike most religious constructs, the Greek mythological world tried to make sense of the greater life of the universe in terms that were very human indeed, with a minimum of mystery. 'The terrifying irrational has no place in classical mythology.'

This is not to say, of course, that there were not terrible stories and fantastic creatures -- indeed, the mythological stories are full of them -- Gorgons and hydras and chimaeras dire. But these are mostly metaphorical (and were understood as such), and primarily used for a hero to be made (this same idea has pervaded to the most recent Mission Impossible movie).

Hamilton proceeds after this essay to describe the members of the pantheon, the major and minor gods and goddesses, the ideas of creation, the heroes (human, semi-divine and divine), stories of love and devotion, justice and injustice, and, of course, of warfare, victory, defeat, and courage. Those heroes before the Trojan War, perhaps the Greek-mythological-equivalent of a world war, had battles and dire circumstances to fight and overcome. The Trojan War figured largely in the mythological frameworks of Greece and Rome -- all the gods and goddess were involved in this conflict, it seemed, as were many of the heroes of Greek mythology.

Hamilton, writing in a fairly conservative period of time, and in a fairly conservative culture, sanitised the mythological stories to a large extent. The Greeks were a very human and often rather bawdy bunch; the Romans were even moreso. Much of the sexuality in the mythological stories is omitted, save to demonstrate the less-desirable aspects. Quite often, undergraduates who study mythology are astonished to discover, if they had used Hamilton's text in an earlier high school setting, that there is a lot more sex and violence in the 'real' stories than they had been previously exposed to.

Of course, one of the primary aspects of the mythological tales was not to explain the cosmos or to build complex theological constructs (reason did these, often with help from the myths, but not using the myths as the basis), but rather the illustration of moral truths -- those of honesty, virtue, and courage as primarily valued in Greek and Roman society. Evil befalls those who do not lead a moral life; rewards come to those who do. Of course, there is a bit of whimsy in the cosmos -- bad things happen to good people, etc., even in ancient Greece. The fluctuating personalities of the gods (and the number of them) ultimately gives a satisfying explanation (if not a satisfying reason) why such things might occur.


The crown of all mythology books out there   July 7, 1999
12 out of 14 found this review helpful

This book is hot, it kicks, it rocks, it rules. Can't say it enough; this is phenomenal storytelling, this is pure unsullied love for classic myth, this is beautiful. You cannot find a more complete source than this. All the stories are there, all the details, every little insignificant character. You want animated tale-spinning, you have it here. All the passion and the morals and the humour and the fire and the history and the charm and the beauty and the mystery...collected into this single volume. It's a crime not to read it.


An informative encyclopedia on Greek Mythology.   August 12, 2005
Tobias
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

My English teacher insists that the youth of America is losing culture. So, it is her tradition to assign this fairly large book for reading, so that we are all somewhat versed in the basics of Greek mythology and can recognize the various allusions to it in literature.

What I thought would be a torturous experience turned out to be a rather enjoyable one. I found most of the stories to be well-told and extremely interesting. Edith Hamilton makes sure to leave no detail untold in her accounts of the various lives and actions of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses.

It is over a year later, and I still use this book as a reference for any sort of literary allusion or reference to Greek mythology. So for those considering this book for pure reference purposes, the book contains a massive index to help you find just about any and every character in Greek mythology.

While I agree with some reviewers that the end section on Norse mythology is out of place, it wasn't necessarily poorly written as some claim.

Overall, an excellent purchase for anyone who reads literature, or is just interested in the ancient Greek myths.