Classical Mythology

34 THE MYTHS OF CREATION: THE GODS

ICONOGRAPHY, RELIGION, AND

FEMINIST INTERPRETATIONS

Dexter, Miriam Robbins. Whence the Goddesses: A Source Book. Elmsford, N.Y.: Pergamon

Press, 1990. A history of goddesses through a comparison of the iconography with

the literary tradition.

Ehrenberg, Margaret. Women in Prehistory. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

The role of women from the Paleolithic to the Iron Age, with a consideration of ma-

triarchy in Minoan Crete.

Eller, Cynthia. The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory: Why an Invented Past Won't Give Women

a Future. New York: Beacon Press, 2000. An argument against the validity of inter-

pretations of feminists such as Marija Gimbutas, who imagine in a time of goddess

worship a gynocentric golden age before the onslaught of patriarchy.

Gimbutas, Marija. Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, 7000-3500 B.C.: Myths and Cult Im-

ages. New and updated ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. A study

of figurines, which includes analysis of "Mistresses of Waters," "The Great Goddess

of Life," "Death and Regeneration," and the "Year God."

. The Language of the Goddesses. Foreword by Joseph Campbell. New York: Harper
& Row, 1989. An analysis of the symbols in the archaeological evidence under the
major categories of "Life-Giving," "The Renewing and Eternal Earth," "Death and
Regeneration," and "Energy and Unfolding."

THE GODS, RELIGION, AND THE OCCULT

See the Select Bibliography at the end of Chapter 6.

NOTES

1. See the bibliography for this chapter.


2. G. S. Kirk, The Nature of Greek Myths (Harmondsworth and Baltimore: Penguin Books,
   1974), p. 27. Kirk identifies a "traditional tale" as a myth that has "succeeded in be-
   coming traditional... [and is] important enough to be passed from generation to
   generation."


3. See especially H. J. Rose, A Handbook of Classical Mythology, 6th ed. (London: Methuen,
   1958), pp. 12-14, for his designations of myth, saga, and folktale.


4. Legend may be used as a general term like myth in its broadest sense. Often, however,
   it is defined as equivalent to saga and made to refer to stories inspired by actual per-
   sons and events. Thus for us legend and saga are one and the same. Many prefer the
   German word Mdrchen for the designation of folktales because of the pioneering work
   of the brothers Grimm (1857) in collecting and collating variations of oral tales and
   publishing their own versions.


5. Graham Anderson, Fairytales in the Ancient World (London and New York: Routledge,
   2000), p. 1. He has identified several motifs from familiar fairytales in Greek and Ro-
   man stories (e.g., those of Cinderella, Snow White, Red Riding Hood, and Bluebeard,
   among many others) and offers a comparison of Cupid and Psyche and Beauty and the
   Beast.