1-神话世界.ppt

1、Chapter 1 The World of Myths,蔡海燕 ,Todays content:,I. Mythical Geography II. The Beginning of the World III. Meaning of the Myths,I. Mythical Geography,By experience, not by the scientific fact, when we look around and above us, we seem to stand at the very center of a circular plane, vaulted by the

2、sky, across whose spacious arch the sun travels by day and the moon by night.,To ancient Greeks, the world was flat and round, a disk whose central point was in their own native land, in central Greece, at Delphi.,Historical Site at Delphi,Beyond those lands to which Greek civilization penetrated la

3、y distant lands inhabited by strange people and monsters. Far in the North lived a good and happy people, the Hyperboreans, and to the south “the blameless Ethiopians”. Beyond all lands, and circling the disk of earth, ran the Stream of Ocean, a great and mysterious river without a farther shore.,II

4、. The Beginning of the World,Greek account of the beginning of this world, is in one respect quite unlike the account that is found in the first chapter of the Bible. The Greeks believed that the natural world came into being by birth or generation, and that even the gods whom they worshiped were th

5、e children and successors of an earlier and more elemental race of beings.,The earlier theogony The new theogony,the principal Greek gods family tree,Chaos,AccordingtoGreekmyths about creation, the formless god Chaos was the foundation of all things. From Chaos came Gaea (“Earth”), and Eros (“Love”)

6、. Chaos produced Erebus and Night. From these two were born Aether and Day. Chaos also produced the bottomless depth of the underworld, known as Tartarus.,Gaea heaven and earth are the parents of the powers of nature. It is all a development from the lower to the higher, from unordered forces of nature, to nature ordered by thought, justice and beauty. And this development comes through love and birth, and through struggle, in which the higher gains the rule by crushing the lower. It is the story of science, history and the spiritual life, told as an allegory.,Questions:,1. How did