9/1/10

"No one who has seen that calm water, lapped in a green hollow of the Alban hills, can ever forget it"

That is from the first page of the first chapter("The King of the Wood") in Sir James Frazer's massive The Golden Bough, which we are required to have a quote from on every blog entry for Mr. Sexson's Lit 285 class. I liked it because it speaks to an element of myth(from the Greek for "story", mythos) that seems vital: myths are stories that you cannot forget. Even if you might want to, you cannot forget. You may not want to remember the icky hots that Myrrha had for her father, but how else would you know that myrhh derives from her tree, or the beginning of Adonis, who would inspire Willliam Shakespeare to write Venus and Adonis?

For James Frazer, the story of the Golden Bough was the myth of myths, which prompted his writing of this massive thirteen volume anthropological study. The Golden Bough was a sacred tree on the site of Nemi(off of Greece), which was guarded constantly by a priest with a sword, called King of the Wood. One day the priest would lose in battle to a stronger opponent(or because he just got too old)and be killed, ritually eaten by the community, and his killer would than take his place and carry on the cycle. Why does this myth matter so much to Frazer? Maybe we'll find out as the semester continues.

Everything, in short, is based upon myth(and the Bible, which I almost want to be nitpicky about designating as seperate from myth, but never mind). So therefore, the three Great Phases of Myth correspond to our lives.
1. Birth(Creation)
2.Life (the middle, where everything gets muddled by morality)
3. Death
The objective than, for the class, is to train yourself to see what's already there. Which is to say, myth. I'll see what Kari can do.