Take-home Option for Exam II

Due at the beginning of class,
(in both paper and electronic form)

Directions:
Option 1: write two 600-900 word essays on two of the topics given below
Option 2: write one 1200-1500 word essay on one of the topics given below.


1. What do the first thirty lines or so of the Homeric Hymns to Apollo, Hermes, Artemis, Aphrodite, & Demeter (all in Powell) and the passages from the Iliad 1.561-611 (Powell, pp 155-156) and the Odyssey, 8.266-366 (Powell, pp 183-185) tell us about Greek society (i.e. apply Malinowski's charter theory)? Make sure you give specific examples to back up your conclusions and that you succintly, but sufficiently, state what Malinowski's theory is in your introduction.

2. Apply Levi-Strauss's theory to 3 or 4 of the following Homeric Hymns: to Apollo, to Hermes, to Aphrodite, to Demeter. Make sure you give specific examples to back up your conclusions and that you succintly, but sufficiently, state what Levi-Strauss's theory is in your introduction.

3. The chapter in Powell's book on Zeus and Hera (Chapter 6) details some of the ways that they related to each other as a couple and how that related to what married life was like in Greek society. Starting with Zeus & Hera's relationship, how do the following relationships modify or magnify what one has learned from Zeus & Hera's relationship--Aphrodite and Hephaestus, Demeter & Zeus, Hades & Persephone (as a newly married couple), Apollo & Coronis, Aphrodite & Anchises (their interchange prior to their 'fling').

4. Compare/contrast the Greek view of male/female relationships, as evidenced by Zeus & Hera's relationship (Powell, Ch 6) and either Zeus & Demeter's relationship (Powell, Ch 9) or Aphrodite & Hephaestus' relationship (Powell, Ch 7), with
the Vietnamese view, as evidenced in the myth of Au Co & the Dragon Prince (Leonard, 144ff), and with the Hawaiian view, as evidenced in the myth of Pe-le (Leonard, 122ff)].