On Exams Being Over
Nov. 10th, 2003 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nishatalithaWhen I got out of the lecture theatre that my Greek Mythology exam was being held in, my beloved snuck up on me, and gave me some flowers and kissed me. This was a delightful surprise coming out from an exam that wasn't too bad, but whose last question was just awful. Just because I can, I am going to relate the questions I answered.
Section A involved being given a list of fourteen words, and having to write a short paragraph about ten of them. The words I wrote about were Orphism, Omphale, Penthesiles, Pithos, Pausanias, The Paris School, Philip Slater, Teiresias, Tiamat and the Titans. It wasn't like I could remember much about The Paris School or Philip Slater (and Tiamat was pushing slightly), but I was vague and fudged things a little. The examiner will see through it, I imagine, but the rest of them were solid enough.
I didn't write about Omphalos, Potnia Theron, Sita or Tangaroa. I couldn't remember anything about Omphalos (I asked jessikast later), still remember nothing about Potnia Theron, and aren't sure enough of the mythology surounding the other to write about them.
Section B was the first essay. I narrowed my choices down to:
4) In what main ways, and with what major consequences, do the divine and human spheres interconnect in Greek myth?
Or:
7) "Nature is to culture as female is to male, animal is to human and barbarian is to Greek." Discuss with reference to Greek myth.
I ended up doing #4.
Section C was yet another essay. After looking at most of them, I seriously considered:
10) Choose either Posedion or Ares or Hephaestus and discuss the role he plays in Greek myth and society.
Or
13) Compare Greek myth with the myth system of one other culture with which you are familiar. Are the differences fundamental or merely a matter of detail?
I did end up doing #13, being fairly familiar with Old Testament culture and could contrast and compare it with the Greek myth system. I think it went okay.
Section D was still another essay. There were no choices for this one; we had to do #15.
Discuss the following mythical narrative in the light of your understanding of Greek myth and myth in general, applying to it what you consider to be the most appropriate method (or methods) of interpretation.
"Pluto feel in love with Persephone and carried her off secretly with the help of Zeus. Carrying a torch, Demeter looked for her over all the earth both day and night. When she learned from the inhabitants of Hermion that Pluto had abducted her, she left heaven in anger at the gods, and came to Eleusis in the form of a mortal woman. First she sat down upon a rock called (after her) 'Unlaughing', beside the well that was named Callichorus, then went to Celeus, the king at that time of the Eleusinians. When the women in the palace told her to sit beside them, an old crone named Iambe told a joke and made the goddess smile. For this reason, they say that the women make jokes at the Thesmophoria.
Metaneira, the wife of Celeus, had a child whom Demeter took to nurse. Wishing to make the baby immortal, she would put it on the fire at night and strip off its flesh. Metaneira observed Demophon (for that was the baby's name) growing prodigiously during the day. When she found him buried in the fire, she cried out. The baby thereupon was burned up and the goddess revealed herself.
Demeter made a chariot drawn by winged dragons for Triptolemus, the older of Metaneira's sones, and gave him wheat, which he sowed from the sky over the entire inhabited world. Panyasus says that Triptolemus was a son of Eleusis, for he says that Demeter came to him. Pherecydes, however, says that he was a son of Ocean and Earth.
When Zeus ordered Pluto to return Kore, he gave he a pomegrante seed to eat to prevent her from remaining with her mother. Unaware of its affect, she swallowed it. Because Ascalaphus, the son of Acheron and Gorgyra, told on her, Demeter placed a heavy rock on him in Hades. Persephone was compelled to spend a third of each year with Pluto and the rest with the gods."
That was the exam. When I came out of it, I immediately started feeling shaky and ready to crash. I forgot that one exam tends to take me this way, and the other two were okay, so it had to be this one...
I came home, had a banana and hot chocolate, and played Phantom of the Opera as loudly as I could stand. I also did a bit of gardening. Weed-pulling, really. I've take the greenery (apart from the ferns) out of the stone wall holding the bank up. A lot of it was oxalis, a nasty weed.
Now I seriously turn my attention to finding a job in the next week. I've been applying for places, but they might not be fast enough for me. I'll look at KFC tomorrow when I'm in town, and maybe the Warehouse. Currently, I'm going through old disks reading old fic. It's so silly.
Section A involved being given a list of fourteen words, and having to write a short paragraph about ten of them. The words I wrote about were Orphism, Omphale, Penthesiles, Pithos, Pausanias, The Paris School, Philip Slater, Teiresias, Tiamat and the Titans. It wasn't like I could remember much about The Paris School or Philip Slater (and Tiamat was pushing slightly), but I was vague and fudged things a little. The examiner will see through it, I imagine, but the rest of them were solid enough.
I didn't write about Omphalos, Potnia Theron, Sita or Tangaroa. I couldn't remember anything about Omphalos (I asked jessikast later), still remember nothing about Potnia Theron, and aren't sure enough of the mythology surounding the other to write about them.
Section B was the first essay. I narrowed my choices down to:
4) In what main ways, and with what major consequences, do the divine and human spheres interconnect in Greek myth?
Or:
7) "Nature is to culture as female is to male, animal is to human and barbarian is to Greek." Discuss with reference to Greek myth.
I ended up doing #4.
Section C was yet another essay. After looking at most of them, I seriously considered:
10) Choose either Posedion or Ares or Hephaestus and discuss the role he plays in Greek myth and society.
Or
13) Compare Greek myth with the myth system of one other culture with which you are familiar. Are the differences fundamental or merely a matter of detail?
I did end up doing #13, being fairly familiar with Old Testament culture and could contrast and compare it with the Greek myth system. I think it went okay.
Section D was still another essay. There were no choices for this one; we had to do #15.
Discuss the following mythical narrative in the light of your understanding of Greek myth and myth in general, applying to it what you consider to be the most appropriate method (or methods) of interpretation.
"Pluto feel in love with Persephone and carried her off secretly with the help of Zeus. Carrying a torch, Demeter looked for her over all the earth both day and night. When she learned from the inhabitants of Hermion that Pluto had abducted her, she left heaven in anger at the gods, and came to Eleusis in the form of a mortal woman. First she sat down upon a rock called (after her) 'Unlaughing', beside the well that was named Callichorus, then went to Celeus, the king at that time of the Eleusinians. When the women in the palace told her to sit beside them, an old crone named Iambe told a joke and made the goddess smile. For this reason, they say that the women make jokes at the Thesmophoria.
Metaneira, the wife of Celeus, had a child whom Demeter took to nurse. Wishing to make the baby immortal, she would put it on the fire at night and strip off its flesh. Metaneira observed Demophon (for that was the baby's name) growing prodigiously during the day. When she found him buried in the fire, she cried out. The baby thereupon was burned up and the goddess revealed herself.
Demeter made a chariot drawn by winged dragons for Triptolemus, the older of Metaneira's sones, and gave him wheat, which he sowed from the sky over the entire inhabited world. Panyasus says that Triptolemus was a son of Eleusis, for he says that Demeter came to him. Pherecydes, however, says that he was a son of Ocean and Earth.
When Zeus ordered Pluto to return Kore, he gave he a pomegrante seed to eat to prevent her from remaining with her mother. Unaware of its affect, she swallowed it. Because Ascalaphus, the son of Acheron and Gorgyra, told on her, Demeter placed a heavy rock on him in Hades. Persephone was compelled to spend a third of each year with Pluto and the rest with the gods."
That was the exam. When I came out of it, I immediately started feeling shaky and ready to crash. I forgot that one exam tends to take me this way, and the other two were okay, so it had to be this one...
I came home, had a banana and hot chocolate, and played Phantom of the Opera as loudly as I could stand. I also did a bit of gardening. Weed-pulling, really. I've take the greenery (apart from the ferns) out of the stone wall holding the bank up. A lot of it was oxalis, a nasty weed.
Now I seriously turn my attention to finding a job in the next week. I've been applying for places, but they might not be fast enough for me. I'll look at KFC tomorrow when I'm in town, and maybe the Warehouse. Currently, I'm going through old disks reading old fic. It's so silly.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-11-10 10:12 am (UTC)Strange, the question of #7 is pretty much a more detailed version of the nature/culture question I did, and I used all those opposites in my essay.
And I did an essay about Persephone too, but I think I rushed it a little, becuase I knew I was *just* going to make the 15 mintue mark. And I did.