CLAS 430 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Alcmene, Eurystheus, Traditional Story
Document Summary
Traditional story that is not a myth or legend. Main characters are ordinary men, women and children rather than kings and queens. End of story usually brings a reversal of fortune and a happy ending. Folktale types are made up of smaller elements called folktale motifs. Example of folktale myth = quest (perseus or heracles) Heracles/hercules: strongest (most violent) hero, rids world of monsters; pan-hellenic helper and savior, hera-kleos = glory of hera (his persecutor, birth of heracles: Zeus disguised as amphitryon and has intercourse with alcmena. Hera tries to block birth of twin sons: infancy: Hera sends serpents to kill baby heracles but he crushed the snakes with his mighty hands. Zeus ensured heracles" greatness by placing the infant on hera"s breast for the divine milk, heracles bit the breast and the spurting milk became the milky way: madness of heracles: atonement. Murders wife and children (hallucinations because of hera)
