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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. Why does Leeming say trees are often sacred symbols?

2. When does Leeming say heroes tend to be born?

3. What does Leeming say places and objects are associated with in myth?

4. What does Leeming say most myths are like in their nature?

5. What does Leeming say the hero does with the things the hero attains in heroic feats?

Short Essay Questions

1. What traits does Leeming describe in heroes?

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

3. How does Leeming describe the story of Joan of Arc?

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

5. How does Leeming define the term monomyth?

6. How does Leeming say describe the most important aspect of the hero's myth?

7. How does Leeming describe the myth of Gilgamesh?

8. What significance does Leeming attribute to the labyrinth in myth?

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

10. What does Leeming say the fall of a city represents?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Make an annotated timeline that shows the development of myths from one period to the next. Make an annotated map that shows the various types of myth that were prevalent in different regions in the mid-nineteenth century, in classical times, and in the present.

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

What was the time before the gods like? Not just in the myths, but in the cultural idea of gods: what were the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, or Norse pantheons like before they were seen as pantheons? How did the disparate and local gods become pantheons that seemed to rule over a territory through a religion or system of myths?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 839 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample