SOURCE: "The Heroes," in The Nature of Greek Myths, Penguin Books, 1974, pp. 145-75.

In the following essay, Kirk asserts that the narrative complexity of hero myths is much greater than that of the divine myths. He then classifies hero myths as those related to older heroes (in myths set in a "timeless past long before the Trojan War"), those related to younger heroes (in myths set at a time close to or during the Trojan War), and those concerned with "definitely historical figures."

Powerful as some of the divine myths are, it is the hero myths that constitute the most prominent and varied side of Greek traditional tales as a whole. Many other ethnic collections, perhaps most, are virtually confined to divine tales and contain few heroic ones. Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt exemplify the tendency. The Mesopotamian tales of Gilgamesh are admittedly imaginative, and important from many points...