Mythology Textbooks:

Know of any?  I'm going to be teaching a section of Mythology in the fall.  At our school, it's a 100 -level course , and I'd Iike to find a textbook that presents world myth and mythic themes in a comprehensive and comprehensible (not to mention inexpensive) way.  I haven't taught this course in six years, and used three books (most of which I can't recall).  I may use Rosenberg's World Mythology  again, or her Myth, Folklore and Legend text, which just arrived Friday.  I'm going to augment the course with a field trip to a labyrinth, a few Joseph Campbell videos, a text on Sacred Geometry as archetype and some websites that I've been compiling for the past year--all of these resources are free, and if I can find a good, inexpensive textbook, I'll be one happy crone.

I'm also interested in any suggestions of mythic themes played out in music or drama or dance--I could teach this course for twelve credits per semester and not feel like I've hit everything I want to cover. 

Thanks in advance.

Comments

[Mike]

Bulfinch -- while certainly over-sanitized -- is still pretty much a classic, isn't he? Perhaps hard going for first-year students, but certainly excerptable, and the two mythology reference books I have both cite him heavily. Besides which, Bulfinch is pre-1923 and therefore public domain, which is convenient.

If it were me, I'd definitely have to throw in some stuff from James George Frazer's The Golden Bough, as well.

[joanna]

I think that I'll be going the way of excerpts. it down to a decision between the Rosenberg texts. Not that I won't be using your ideas for my own research or for works I'll leave at the reserve desk. This particular couse is one that the college has open to everyone, so there is no assessment level, as in a student's having to take freshman comp before entering, so there's likely to be a wide mix of abilities.

[L]

No recommendations for a text, but to show myth in a modern context, you could consider showing students O Brother, Where Art Thou or demonstrating how Campbell's Hero's Journey maps onto Star Wars. I've seen these things work - some of the freshmen were awake for the entire class period!

[delagar]

I just taught a Myth class -- I used Robert Graves, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Hesiod's Theogony, in combination, and then followed that up with a book on Norse mythology, to give them a bit from that direction. I didn't have them read all of Graves, or all of Ovid: just juicy selections. It worked really well.

The Norse Myth book I well was Crosswell-Holland's. It was okay. I don't especially recommend it, though. His notes are sort of dopey.

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[Bill Stifler]

I use Edith Hamilton's mythology as a reading text because it gives a simple overview of Greek myth and includes a short section on Norse myth. Brand new it can be had for less than $10. I use it with Leonard & McClure's Myth & Knowing, which I like because of the critical apparatus.

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I would check some of the books on cheapesttextbooks.com. They have a lot there and it really is cheap to buy or rent books.

[Stephanie Rowe]

Can you say what it is you like about the Rosenberg textbooks? I'm teaching this class for the first time in the spring -- a last minute assignment, and now I'm scrambling even to get the book order in...

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