This was a really interesting collection of myths. The writing style felt really authentic, like we were actually being told the tales around the fire, like they were originally aurally passed on. Despite this, I really liked how the author didn’t just tell one story but gave all the contradicting versions. Even doing this though, I think he could have found a way to fit the stories together. Of course, it’s impossible to put mythology in chronological order but I felt he could have linked them through characters or something. Also, at points it was choc a-bloc with spelling and grammar errors which were just ridiculous!

Muito bom! É um apanhado muito técnico e completo.

A very good reference book to all those little details that one can love and hate.

Robert Graves writes the myths in a few paragraphs which do more to "telling" then to "showing" the myths. Yet there are things I do not agree with (the mix-and-mash of myths which were once religions unrelated to the Greeks) also I do not quite like his assumptions upon myths and the ancient Greek people themselves.

It isn't so clear to me as it seems cut to him; it makes me wonder where he got a lot of those assumptions from -what facts? He only tells what these are, his theory, he does not show you from what source. (The sources of the myths, yes, not of his "history" behind them).

In that way I feel a lot of unanswered questions. A lot of this is book is putting facts behind the myths, where one might confuse what is real with what wasn't. I think this book was once read a lot by authors (Mary Renault/Marion Zimmer Bradley?) and I would be interested to know if they had read this work and based their own setting to Greek "ancient history" upon it.

If so, it would go a long way to answering some unasked questions I have. There is also that it is claimed Robert Graves was attached to the early forming of "wicca" (his novel "The White Goddess") so may have shaped his "Greek history" and the "facts behind myths" to those budding beliefs.

Yet for a resource book, it's very good, if one ignores what Robert Graves attempts as history to explain myth and ancinet religions.

This would make a great academic reference, if not for the fact that the author's analysis of the myths is pretty much completely pulled out of his ass. I've done some research and most experts seem to concur that there is no archaeological or any other kind of evidence for his claims. He's fixated on unifying ALL the myths as allegories for some system of pre-Hellenic matriarchy that was replaced by Aryan patriarchy, but really, it becomes ridiculous as he tries without a hint of irony, to fuse every symbol -- by the end of it, there's a weird laundry list of the characteristics of the 'Sacred Kings', including hiding in jars, ceremonially dying in chariot races, ceremonially being gashed in the thigh by boars, sacrificing children, and gradually usurping power from their matriarchal counterparts who hitherto had held all the power.

It's a bizarre, alternate history kind of thing (I think another review on this book compared it to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos), and I have no idea how Penguin even let him publish this. I stopped reading the footnotes after about 300 pages, because they're all made up and I couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, there are some good bits and some detailing of myths which I had only known about very generally. The first 200 pages or so are actually really riveting, dealing with the Theogony and the various dealings of the gods, which are always the best part of Greek mythology -- but the middle 400 pages of this colossal volume just deals with the foundation myths of each and every city state, which is important in its way but really quite dull. It reads like the Bible. There are some really funny parts, like how Hercules sleeps with 50 women in one night (I don't remember that in the Disney cartoon) and the explanation of why Athenians have small butts.

With some judicious editing, this could actually be very enjoyable, but as it is, it's not very well done. In a lot of later editions they just cut out the ridiculous footnotes altogether, and I think that's probably for the best.

nice overview of greek mythology. obviously not enough if we want details, but it's a good book if we want to get into it.

See reviews to Part I and Part II. I'll probably get around to combining a full review of the whole Graves/Greek thingy, but I've got other books to hump and other stories to ride.

This would make a great academic reference, if not for the fact that the author's analysis of the myths is pretty much completely pulled out of his ass. I've done some research and most experts seem to concur that there is no archaeological or any other kind of evidence for his claims. He's fixated on unifying ALL the myths as allegories for some system of pre-Hellenic matriarchy that was replaced by Aryan patriarchy, but really, it becomes ridiculous as he tries without a hint of irony, to fuse every symbol -- by the end of it, there's a weird laundry list of the characteristics of the 'Sacred Kings', including hiding in jars, ceremonially dying in chariot races, ceremonially being gashed in the thigh by boars, sacrificing children, and gradually usurping power from their matriarchal counterparts who hitherto had held all the power.

It's a bizarre, alternate history kind of thing (I think another review on this book compared it to Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos), and I have no idea how Penguin even let him publish this. I stopped reading the footnotes after about 300 pages, because they're all made up and I couldn't be bothered.

Anyway, there are some good bits and some detailing of myths which I had only known about very generally. The first 200 pages or so are actually really riveting, dealing with the Theogony and the various dealings of the gods, which are always the best part of Greek mythology -- but the middle 400 pages of this colossal volume just deals with the foundation myths of each and every city state, which is important in its way but really quite dull. It reads like the Bible. There are some really funny parts, like how Hercules sleeps with 50 women in one night (I don't remember that in the Disney cartoon) and the explanation of why Athenians have small butts.

With some judicious editing, this could actually be very enjoyable, but as it is, it's not very well done. In a lot of later editions they just cut out the ridiculous footnotes altogether, and I think that's probably for the best.