Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, 75th Anniversary Illustrated Edition

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It is more accurate to think of her as a collector or interpreter, as she compiled the stories in the book from the writings of various Greek, Roman, and Icelandic authors. This book taught me that Troy was a city and Brad Pitt's name in the movie should have been Achilles.

I don't really mind if she disses Hercules, but her gratuitous dissing of my boy Ovid really didn't win her any points. Hamilton proves herself extremely knowledgeable, not only with regard to the Greek Myths but, about the times in which they were composed as well. Several of her early articles were published in Theater Arts Monthly before she began writing the series of books on ancient Greek and Roman life for which she is most noted. the calm lucidity of the Greek mind, which convinced the great thinkers of Athens of their mastery of truth and enlightenment. People who enjoy his media personality and particular style of post‑Wodehouse English drollery are in for a treat.In 1906, Hamilton's accomplishments as an educator and administrator were recognized when she was named the first headmistress in the school's history.

This book has been on the required reading list of so many schools that nearly everyone has seen it, owned it, and opened it at least twice. Edith Hamilton may have written Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes more than a half century ago and she may have been fairly ancient when she did so, but she still put out one seriously readable book! Well, most of his problem was with those bite-sized little rundowns of the myths, which is what I liked about it. In comparing ancient Egypt with Greece, for instance, Hamilton's writing describes the unique geography, climate, agriculture, and government. In addition, Hamilton was elected to the American Institute of Arts and Letters in 1955 and the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1957.

The bestseller drew comparisons between ancient Greece and modern-day life with essays about some of the great figures of Athenian history and literature. She is the first being to emerge in the universe, born somehow out of the forces of Love, Light, and Day. Niobe, daughter of Tantalus, disrespected the Goddess Leto by exclaiming to the people that they should worship and burn incense to her and not to the Goddess. One reason to do so is that Fry is unusually sensitive to the contemporary resonance in myths about gay gods and heroes and the transgender Hermaphroditus. While I was pleased to see that Hamilton had included the Volsunga saga in the chapter about Norse mythology (in many books it is replaced by the Nibelungenlied which was penned much later), she dismissed the saga by saying that the story is so well-known thanks to the Nibelungenlied that the original can be told briefly and THAT is an absolute no-go for me.

These contrasting motivations of the classical poets, and the degree to which such motivations are reflected in their stories, remind us that even these Greek and Roman poets were not themselves the original creators of these myths. The views of the prophets, it adds, are very similar to those in modern times: "The prophets were forerunners of three genuinely American movements— humanism, pragmatism and the philosophy of common sense. At the beginning of each chapter, Hamilton notes which authors she has used as source material for that chapter’s stories. Alice Hamilton became a resident of Chicago's Hull House, a settlement house that offered food, shelter, and educational classes as a charitable effort on the part of wealthy donors and scholars who volunteered their time. There was once a king who had three daughters, all lovely maidens … Which sounds like Once upon a time there was a ….After graduating from Bryn Mawr College, Landsberg also resided at Hull House, where she was in charge of its evening programs and shared a room with Alice Hamilton. I get that it's not for everyone, but if you want to learn more about mythology in general, this is the book for you.

Drawing from Greek, Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian writings, Hamilton put into words what ancient people were like by concentrating on what they wrote about their own lives. A little naive maybe, however, given this and the irrevocably atrocious acts of each and every member of the Greek Pantheon, I suggest that there are, in fact, no Gods in Greek Mythology, only reflections of vastly more powerful versions of ourselves, unmasking and exposing all of our most unfavourable attributes. Nevertheless, Hamilton’s choices reflect a personal point of view: the stories she includes, her methods of storytelling, and her omissions reveal her own interpretation of the myths and also reflect the time period in which she was writing.

Theseus does have his shortcomings, however: he abandons Ariadne, and later doubts his own son, which leads to his tragic demise. There is about a page of rambling prose in the introduction in which the words "myth", "religion" and "Nature" appear together prominently, but no coherent thesis is advanced. I picked up some info somewhere in the edition I'm reading, and finally realized that in the climactic section of the play the Furies are rebranded by Athena into the Eumenides - a name that means Kindly Ones - thus changing them from a group seeking revenge and retribution (the old way that humans responded to murder) to a group which provides a higher moral choice to human kind, through the institution of justice. Agamemnon’s stubbornness toward Achilles almost costs the Greeks the war, and his cold-hearted sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia ultimately costs him his life.