Writing Down the Myths

336 Pages·2012·15.605 MB·English

by  Joseph Falaky Nagy

Writing Down the Myths
CURSOR MUNDI
Cursor Mundi is produced under the auspices of the Center for
Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles
Executive Editor
Blair Sullivan, University of California, Los Angeles
Editorial Board
Michael D. Bailey, Iowa State University
Christopher Baswell, Columbia University and Barnard College
Florin Curta, University of Florida
Elizabeth Freeman, University of Tasmania
Yitzhak Hen, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Lauren Kassell, Pembroke College, Cambridge
David Lines, University of Warwick
Cary Nederman, Texas A&M University
Teofilo Ruiz, University of California, Los Angeles
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.
Volume 17
Writing Down the Myths
Edited by
Joseph Falaky Nagy
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Writing down the myths. -- (Cursor mundi ; 17)
1. Myth--History.
2. Mythologists--History.
I. Series
II. Nagy, Joseph Falaky editor of compilation.
809.9'15-dc23

ISBN-13: 9782503542188
© 2013, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2013/0095/79
ISBN: 978-2-503-54218-8
e-ISBN: 978-2-503-54259-1
Printed on acid-free paper
Contents
Illustrations vii
Editor’s Preface ix
Are Myths Inside the Text or Outside the Box?
JOSEPH FALAKY NAgY 1
Packaging greek Mythology
WILLIAM HANSEN 19
The ‘myth before the myth began’
RICHARD MARTIN 45
Starving the Slender Muse:
Identity, Mythography, and Intertextuality in Ovid’s Ibis
DARCY KRASNE 67
Medieval Latin Mythography as Death and Resurrection of Myth
JAN ZIOLKOWSKI 87
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid: Celtic Myth and
Christian Creed in Medieval Irish Concepts of the Afterlife
BERNHARD MAIER 107
Vessels of Myth
KIMBERLY BALL 137
vi Contents
‘Venerable relics’? Re-visiting the Mabinogi
SIONED DAVIES 157
Caesar’s Sword, Proud Britons, and galfridian Myths of Discontinuity
KATHERINE McLOONE 181
Snorri Sturluson and the Construction of Norse Mythography
MARgARET CLUNIES ROSS 201
Thor and the Midgard Serpent:
Whom Should We Read, Snorri or Finnur?
gíSLI SIgURðSSON 223
Some Thoughts on Saxo’s Euhemerism
JOHN LINDOW 241
Motivations for Hittite Mythological Texts
H. CRAIg MELCHERT 257
India and the graphy o’ Myth
STEPHANIE W. JAMISON 265
Myth and Counter-Myth in Early Modern Japan
WILLIAM M. BODIFORD 277
Index 311
Illustrations
Figures
Figure 1, p. 30. The author beside a pithos.
Figure 2, p. 31. Pithoi in the Minoan palace at Knossos, Crete.
Figure 3, p. 32. Dante gabriel Rossetti, Pandora (1869).
Figure 4, p. 34. John William Waterhouse, Pandora (1896).
Figure 5, p. 35. Pandora’s Planet, cover illustrated by Kelly Freas (Daw, 1972).
Figure 6, p. 72. Lines 469–500 of Ovid’s Ibis in schematized form.
Figure 7, p. 74. ‘Those destroyed by their teams of horses’ (Hyginus, Fabulae,
250) and ‘Those struck by lightning’ (Ovid, Ibis, ll. 468–76).
Figure 8, p. 287. Nihon Shoki Jindai Kan (History of Japan: Books on the Div ine
Age), printed by the royal command of go-Yōzei (1572–1617), movable-
type edition, bk i, leaf 1r. 1599.
Figure 9, p. 296. Kojiki (Ancient Accounts), 1644 edition, bk i, leaf 4v. 1644.
Figure 10, p. 298. Kojiki-den (Ancient Accounts Conveyed), by Motoori
Norinaga (1730–1801), undated reprint of 1790 edition, bk iii, leaf 1r.
Figure 11, p. 300. Kojiki (Ancient Accounts), 1644 edition, bk i, leaf 6r. 1644.
Figure 12, p. 302. Kojiki-den (Ancient Accounts Conveyed), by Motoori
Norinaga (1730–1801), undated reprint of 1790 edition, bk iv, leaf 14v.
Tables
Table 1, p. 75. Variations on the parentage and death of Linus.
Table 2, p. 78. Catalogue opening by theme.
Editor’s Preface
Joseph Falaky Nagy
Contemporary scholarly definitions of and approaches to myth, though
profoundly affected over the last two hundred centuries by the
fieldwork and findings of anthropologists and folklorists who have
worked with living oral traditions, are still to a great extent indebted to classical
greek and Roman, and medieval European masterpieces of mythography —
literary compendia that purport to sum up ancient traditional stories about gods
and goddesses, heroes and heroines, primal events, and/or the beginnings of
the world. Such texts, which weave narrative materials from oral tradition and
from earlier literature into mythologies, have in some cases become canonical
formulations serving as sources, templates, and inspirations for other literary
and scholarly works, both within their own literary-historical contexts and well
beyond them. There are cases, however, where these codified mythologies served
as epitaphs, seemingly marking the end of particular (oral) traditions instead
of their (literary) revival. The essays in this volume examine the various agenda
(literary, cultural, political) that led to the production of mythological collections
in the classical and late antique world, and the extent to which the agenda that
produced comparable works in certain medieval cultures of northwest Europe
(Ireland, Wales, Iceland, Denmark) operated along similar or even historically
related lines. Some of the essays, on the other hand, offer fascinating comparanda
from non-European literary traditions: Hittite, Japanese, and Indic.
As all of those know who participated in the 2009 UCLA conference on
‘Writing Down the Myths’ that gave birth to this publication, medievalists, clas-
sicists, and scholars from a variety of disciplines can all learn a great deal from
each other’s expertise in regard to the establishment of mythological canons in
earlier times. The questions we invited those participants and the contributors
to this volume to address include: How ‘authentic’ are classical and medieval
x Editor’s Preface
mythographies, and how do we determine that authenticity? To what uses were
they put in the ancient and medieval worlds? What was the transmission his-
tory of pre-medieval mythographic works in the Middle Ages, and to what extent
and to whom were they available as models to the post-classical world? What
and whence was the ‘mythographic urge’ behind medieval works such as the
Welsh Mabinogi and Snorri’s Edda? Are such compositions attempts to negotiate
received or developing concepts of history, or are they revivals of meta-historical
poetics? What are the differences in function, approach, and subtext between
these premodern ‘write-ups’ of myth and modern popular handbooks of mythol-
ogy? And is mythography to be found in every culture that develops a written
tradition, or is it a particular characteristic of greek, Roman, and classically influ-
enced cultures?
The above-mentioned conference, ‘Writing Down the Myths: The Construc-
tion of Mythology in Classical and Medieval Traditions’ (16–18 April 2009) was
sponsored by the Ahmanson Foundation and by the UCLA Center for Medieval
and Renaissance Studies. I wish to thank the Director of the CMRS, Brian
Copenhaver, its staff, Karen Burgess, Benay Furtivo, and Brett Landenberger, and
the co-organizer of the conference, Kendra Willson, for their unstinting support,
as well as Dr Blair Sullivan, Publications Director of the CMRS, for her genial
encouragement and sage advice. Thanks are also due to all the participants, who
generously offered the essays contained herein and patiently tolerated the queries
of their editor. I also note with gratitude the moral and logistical support given
to the conference by the members of the teaching staff of the UCLA general
Education Cluster Course ge 30, ‘Neverending Stories: Multidisciplinary
Perspectives on Myth’: Malcolm Harris, Stephanie Jamison, gregory Kendrick,
Eric Kristensson, Katherine McLoone, Anna Pagé, Timothy Tangherlini, and
Elizabeth Thornton. What we all learned from the conference served us in good
stead indeed as we launched the course in the Fall of 2009, and the memory of
the conference still inspires those of us involved in ge 30 as we prepare to teach
the course once again in the upcoming year.