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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How does Leeming define the hero?

2. How does Leeming describe the significance of the city?

3. What was the young girl in the Water Jar Boy myth doing when she got pregnant?

4. What forms does Leeming say the heroes' guides will take?

5. Who does Leeming say Theseus' parents were?

Short Essay Questions

1. What significance does Leeming attribute to Delphi?

2. How does Leeming describe the myth of Gilgamesh?

3. How does Leeming describe the myth of Moses?

4. How does Leeming describe the myth of Oedipus?

5. What does Leeming say the Mountain represents in myth?

6. What does Leeming see places and objects as metaphors for?

7. What is the Water Jar Boy myth?

8. What significance does Leeming attribute to places and objects?

9. What significance does Leeming attribute to trees in myth?

10. Where does Leeming see images of the Great Mother in cathedrals?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the difference between a myth and a legend or fairy tale? Cite examples from The World of Myth to support your answer.

Essay Topic 2

Leeming discusses the myths of a number of major cultures: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hebraic, Christian, Norse, and Native American. Based on what Leeming describes of their myths--their creation, hero, afterlife and apocalypse myths, as well as their god and goddesses, sacred places and objects and signs and symbols--how would you characterize the difference between two cultures?

Essay Topic 3

Does an interpreter of myth lose any interpretive authority if they come from a culture outside of the myth? Can an American interpret an Indian myth, or vice versa? Do you have to be inside of a myth to understand it? Can all myths be analyzed and entered into? Do some myths simply remain strangers to us?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 872 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample