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Hello everybody.
My name is Peter Struck, the name of this

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course is Greek and Roman Mythology, so
glad you decided to take it.

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Welcome to the course and looking forward
to reading some really great stories with

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you in the coming ten weeks.
Now this is a course where you'll need to

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be able to get online and access a video
which I see you've already done.

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So you've done the first part.
Some of the course will me, me chattering

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and sharing ideas that I have in these
video segments.

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A good bit of the time of the course is
going to be spent with you and smarter

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people like Homer as close virtual reading
their works that are going to be the

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centerpiece of what our course is all
about.

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There'll be a good bit of time in this
course that is spent reading.

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And I think it will be a great pleasure.
Be sure definitely to give yourself enough

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time to do the reading.
If you try to crash read it the night

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before, chances are you're not gong to
like it.

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This is reading that's best done in small
bits and give it the time that it needs to

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speak to you in all the ways it's going to
be able to speak to you.

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We're also going to have some quizzes and
writing assignments, short quizzes that'll

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be graded automatically by the computer.
And then short writing assignments where

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you will contribute your own ideas and
also hear back from your peers, other

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people taking the course, that are going
to help us in the broader scheme of group

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grading, which we're entering into here
with Coursera.

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Yeah, it's true.
We'll have peer assessments in this class

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where, you'll tell each other what you
think about the kind of writing work that

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you've done.
We'll do our best to weigh in on that as

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well.
But there are tens of thousands of you,

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and there's only a few of us on the
teaching staff.

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So, you may not hear from us as directly
as you would want to.

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But you're surely going to hear lots of
smart things from other people taking this

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course.
The area in which that's most likely they

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happen is on the community forum.
Anytime you have a contribution to make,

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or a question about what's been going on
in class, you can jump onto the community

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forum and you won't need to wait for one
of us on the teaching staff to answer you

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on that forum.
Your question, your question is going to

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be answered by other people in the class.
That's what's been happening with

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Coursera.
We're creating, it's true, learning

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communities of people that are, sharing
interests and sharing ideas, sharing

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questions, and also sharing answers.
We're going to be reading in this class

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about monsters.
We're going to read about heroes.

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We're going to read about marriages gone
right.

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And wrong, family squabbles, massive
architectonic, earth-changing wars, all

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kinds of things.
But most of all what we're going to be

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reading about is the question of what it
means to be human.

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Sure gods and monsters and animals are in
this, these stories.

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But what they're mostly there to do is to
help us focus on what Greek myths tend to

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be most interested in.
And that is you and I, as members of a

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very definitive species, a unique group of
organisms floating around in the on the

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surface of the earth, and trying to make
our way between being born and dying.

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These stories give us a way to fill in all
the stuff that comes between.

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We're going to be looking at this course,
and some stories that have been told and

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retold for many generations in fact
they're are some of the oldest pieces of

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cultural DNA to survive in the evidence we
have from the human past.

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They're also some of the most widely
diffuse, these stories are so good and get

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stuck in the imaginations of so many
peoples that over time they get made and

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remade in the images of later cultures who
want to appropriate this early material

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and build it into their own culture stuff.
So, learning these strands of human

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cultural DNA is going to give you a window
on a broad sweep of what of, of the human

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family and the different ways that people
in these groups have tried to answer very

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broad and important questions.
Now you'll notice taking a look back,

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those of you who are paying attention,
we're out in space.

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Isn't that exciting?
And often times, classes that have to do

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with mythology, talk about myths floating
around in space somewhere as though

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there's some abstraction that just come
down to us on high.

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But in this course this is about the only
time we'll spend in space.

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Mostly what we'll be doing is looking at
where these myths come from and while we

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want to try and find out where they come
from we don't always have specific

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answers, but we do know they come from the
planet Earth, they come from to us in the

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form of human language and they come to us
spoken by specific human beings, people

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who are in our species who over time have
run into questions, have told stories,

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have offered answers, have told and retold
different versions of important tales have

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become powerful for them at different
points in their lives.

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That's the stuff that's going to occupy us
in this course.

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Not so much, these environs, that well
spooky may not have too many answers to

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offer us.
So, what we're going to look at in this

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class is particular slice of the picture
of ancient mythologies.

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We know mythologies from many different
cultures across the old world.

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The Greeks and the Romans are who we're
going to focus on in this class and it

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will be a slice of the larger picture of
mythology is all about.

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But I hope you'll agree with me, it's a
wonderful one with all kinds of

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interesting kinds of stuff in it.
So we can start off with a relatively

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simple question.
Let's lay out in front of us the question

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of what is myth.
Straightforward question.

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It's answer couldn't be, more difficult.
Myth is one of those deep and highly

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valued ideas that cultures use in order to
try to figure out and describe the world,

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and like things like love or truth or
beauty, the idea of myth is hot property.

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People care about it a great deal.
They offer many different definitions of

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it.
Some of those definitions are actually in

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direct conflict with each other.
But, nevertheless, it still points to

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something that endures over time despite
all the conflicting definitions because

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people find having a category like this is
for them extremely valuable. Complex?

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Yes.
Important?

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Absolutely.
Maddeningly difficult to, to define?

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Surely.
One thing I think that we'll find out is

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that myth actually operates as a kind of
container into which people toss what is

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most valuable in their culture.
And since people's valuations change over

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time, what gets tossed into the container
of myth over time is going to change too.

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Now, we'll start with a couple of ideas
taking a look at modern English.

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The term myth.
Has lots of different definitions.

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Let's start off with an obvious one.
You might see a newscaster talk about,

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tune in at five:00 today to the evening
news and we're going to explode the myths

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about topic x.
And when someone in the contemporary

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public discourse talks like that what
they're saying is, we're going to show you

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something lots of people believe and we're
going to show that's it's actually untrue.

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Myth is by definition a lie, or something
untrue that needs to be exploded and

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cleared away.
But then, there are other people who claim

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no, no, no, wait a minute, myth is
actually something that is true, and not

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only true, it is profoundly true.
Its the most deep and resonant kind of

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truth that a human being is capable of.
Myth contains all of this stuff and passes

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it down from generation to generation and
people talk about myth in this way,

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probably just don't say myth, they say
something like myth, with some extra aura

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of authority and meaningfulness surround
it.

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So the mythic in this part of the English
language at least exists in a way that

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labels something deeply profoundly true.
So, we already have a first incoherence.

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Is myth a lie?
Or is myth the most profound truth

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possible to human beings?
Second incoherence, among the people that

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think myth has some truth to it, there are
some that claim that myth has universal

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truths to it.
So when we dig down deep into the hidden

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meanings in the stories we're going to be
looking at, what we're going to reveal is

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the deep truth about something that is
profoundly common and universal in the

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human family.
There are others that claim if myth has

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truths in it, that myth is actually a
window into specific, cultural located

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truths.
Truths that are located in space and time,

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with specific peoples anchored to specific
cultures.

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And when we dig down in the deep, hidden
meanings of myth, what we're really going

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to reveal is what it is to be a member of
some specific culture.

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So if you really want to understand, what
it is to be Irish or to be Native

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American, or to be from a Norse-based
culture, or a South Asian culture, or East

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Asian culture, what you need to do is dig
deep down into the local myths of those

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peoples to get a window on what it is to
be a member of that culture.

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So, another incoherence that shows up if
myth is true it's either true about

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universals or it's true about cultural
particulars.

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Most people are going to agree that it has
something to do with the past, myths took

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place in an earlier time, but again this
is never simple.

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If there are some people that talk about
the past as a primitive area of

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irrationalist kind of fantasies and a
mentality that, you know, maybe they would

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say is thank goodness has been displaced,
displaced by more logical, more reasonable

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ways of thinking.
These people might toss up science as a,

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a, a parallel formation to myth and talk
about science as somehow displacing myth

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as a way of looking at the world.
But then, there will be other people that

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talk about a primitive idea of myth and
they'll embrace that.

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They'll talk about primitive in a very
good way, saying that something that is

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primal has to do with a core reality, some
fundamental or rudimentary part of what it

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is to be human is going to be revealed
when we look at myths.

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So among those that think that, myths are
true.

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There are some that will think that, the
there, there are.

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Sorry.
There are some that will think that myths

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are lies.
Some we'll think they're true.

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Some that think among the truths will
think that they are truth about, true

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about some specific culture.
Others about general human phenomena.

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And then finally this final incoherence
some will embrace its primitiveness as

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being a wonderful thing.
Some will embrace, some will try to shoo

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it as being something that is negative
that we should, at all, and, and always

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try to stay away from.
Now, I want to be careful in this course

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to lay out a couple of disclaimers when
they come up.

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The first thing I wanted to underline and
I'll make reference to this later on too,

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is that the myths that we're going to look
at are, sometimes they are PG, sometimes

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they are G, sometimes they are NC17 or R,
or even worse.

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We're going to look at some nasty stuff.
There's awful things that's gonna happen

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from illicit kinds of sexual
relationships, there's going to be

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explicit violence, so it's going to be
very disturbing.

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And I say this because some of the young
folks out there might be tuning in to a

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methodology class.
Sure, that's a kind of thing that you see

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coming out of Hollywood, and it seems to
be pretty tame and same.

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What we're looking at in this class is
anything but tame and safe.

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So if you're a younger person be sure to
ask your parents if what you're viewing is

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okay.
High school and beyond you're probably

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fine but, I say this because I am not sure
I would want my own son who is younger

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than that, watching, taking this course.
Now to get started on the conversation

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about what myth is all about, we've laid
down some general things that are floating

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around the contemporary culture, but you
might ask yourself, well, what do the

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Greeks themselves think about myth?.
Well, in fact, they did have a word for

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it.
You will see behind me, Mythos.

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So you will recognize right away.
Look, it already looks like the English

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word myth.
And in fact, it looks identical, to the

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German word, for muthos, and for an
Italian and an French word.

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All these contemporary words are scooped
out of a Greek root that spelled in these

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characters, looks like this.
Muthos And, those contemporary ideas are

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built on this Greek idea.
So let's have a look at what the Greeks

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themselves thought a myth was, a muthos
was.

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First of all, they thought for, the oldest
definition we have is that it's speech.

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Anything that comes out of your mouth
could count as a muthos.

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Any sound or word that comes out of a
person's mouth could count as muthos.

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Secondly, and a little bit later in Greek
history, the term comes to label a

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specific kind of speech.
It's a speech that is a narrative story.

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It has a beginning, middle, and end, a
plot, characters, things that you care

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about stuff that you want to hear, okay?
Becomes an idea of a story, then later it

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becomes known as a specifically false
story, so the connotation changes slightly

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to mean a tall tale, something that's
surely not true, the kind of story that

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people like to tell, but it doesn't have
any underlying truth to it.

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Then finally, even later in Greek history
some thousand years after some of the

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poets we're going to be reading at this
time, there are people that start to turn

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to this idea of myth, as being yes a tall
tale but one that has some underlying,

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deeper truth to it.
If you look down beneath the surface

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there'll be some subterranean messages
that are ready to come out if you dig a

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little deeper and look at them a little
more closely.

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So this is a good place for us to get
started.

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We've had a good look at what myth is, in
a general way from the context of a

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contemporary perspective, from an ancient
perspective and what we really framed is

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the ideal that myth is going to be much
more than some single, simple definition

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is going to allow us to define.
And all these different, sometimes

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conflicting ideals about myth are going to
be present in our course.

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I'm not going to try to talk you our of
anyone, any of these, and I'm not going to

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try to necessarily even really clean up
the picture all that much from the messy

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one you see here.
It's just we're all going to get to know

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over the course of time a little bit more
about how this messy picture works and

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what all its little areas are all about.
Until we get to that point there's lots of

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us, lots of time out there for us to do
some reading on our own.

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There's going to be a lot of that for you.
I look forward to, in the coming weeks

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reading some of the most amazing stories
that I know with you as we move through

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the course material.