ENG 4623/5623, Mythology

Fall 2002

Final Examination

The final is a take-home examination, which will be due no later than Monday, 9 December, at 5:00. There are three permissible ways to submit the exam: by turning it into the English Department office (Wilson 313) by 4:30 on 9 December, by giving it directly to me (in my office [Wilson 408] where I will be until 5:00), or by e-mail (with the usual warnings and restrictions: that is, it must be submitted in the appropriate format [double-spaced], it must be dated and timed before the deadline, and it must be acknowledged by me). Do not under any circumstances slip the examination under my office door or tack it to the bulletin board outside!!

Essay I. Write in response to either of the following questions. Be sure that your essay is clearly focused on a thesis which you develop by means of specific illustrations. The essay should be about two typewritten pages in length.

• 1. How do four schools of myth theory explain multiple occurrence–that is, the fact that the same or similar myths recur in societies that have no apparent historical connection? Be very specific. Instead of simply stating "polygenesis" or "diffusion," you should explain the particular mechanisms which each of the four schools suggests for those processes.
• 2. How do four schools of myth theory explain the occurrence of the irrational and the fantastic in mythology? Again you should be very specific in explaining the processes that each of four schools suggests as lying behind the irrational and fantastic.

Essay II. Write in response to either of the following questions. Be sure that your essay is clearly focused on a thesis which you develop by means of specific illustrations. The essay should be about two typewritten pages in length.

• 1. Students of myth have conventionally differentiated between "primitive" and "civilized" thought processes. Using ideas of Vico, the solar mythologists, Freud, Jung, and Levi-Strauss (choose four of these five), show how what they say about the nature of myth contributed to their views of primitive and civilized mentalities.
• 2. In Works and Days Hesiod positions some of the most prosaic processes of farm life within the context of mythology. Using specifics from his poem as well as relevant approaches to considering myth’s relationship to the rest of culture, show how Hesiod makes a case for the role of myth in the life of the Boeotian farmer c. 800 b.c.e.