Reading Notes: Crash Course - Overview of Mythology



The Crash Course: Overview of Mythology videos are an interesting and fun way of learning more about mythology. The videos cover the topics of defining "What is a Myth", "Theories of Myth", and "The Hero's Journey and the Monomyth." In the first video I learned that all true myths revolve around the creation of the world and, therefore, all myths are somewhat religious in nature. I also learned that to be a myth you really need two things: significance and staying power. The second video focused on the different theories of myths. Something in this video that I found interesting was that in ancient times myths would be created to explain something that they didn't understand; this is called euhemerism. Some even viewed myths as demonic meant to distract and deter individuals from the true truth about religion, such as logos. It was also interesting to learn the connections between different disciplines, such as mythology, anthropology, and psychology. The last video focused on hero's in mythology. Famous mythologist Joseph Campbell defined hero's as those who journey away from safety and towards adventure. He also viewed all individuals as hero's struggling to find their adventures. Meaning that hero's are symbolic of the psychological journey all individuals go through. Monomyth was termed because Campbell believed all hero's myth were universally symbolic and shared a similar pattern.

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