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Arizona’s Most Excelling Schools! Arcadia High School Telephone: 480-484-6300 4703 E. Indian School Road FAX: 480-484-6301 Phoenix, Arizona 85018 Web site: arcadia.susd.org May 2020 Dear Incoming Honors English 2 Students, Parents, and Guardians: Welcome to the second year of the Honors English program at Arcadia High School. We look forward to meeting you and to sharing a year of challenging reading, writing and thinking. In order to prepare for some of the first assignments you will encounter as a student in Honors English 2 (a class with a curriculum focused on world literature), you will be required to complete outside reading. We recommend that you do some reading before school starts in August. There is one book that you should read: Mythology, by Edith Hamilton Read the following sections and complete the questions provided: Introduction to Classical Mythology The Gods The Two Great Gods of Earth How the World and Mankind were Created The Earliest Heroes Eight Brief Tales of Lovers Four Great Adventures Theseus Hercules Perseus Atalanta The Adventures of Odysseus Brief Myths This book is readily available at public libraries, local and online bookstores, and as a downloadable e-book. You should read each section of Mythology carefully and answer the questions provided on an electronic document (i.e., a Word doc, Google doc, etc.). The answers will be collected electronically through turnitin.com within the first two weeks of school. In addition to answering the questions, we suggest you take notes in order to prepare you for corresponding assignments. Pay special attention to all standard literary elements such as: elements of plot, characterization, setting, symbolism, and theme(s). There will be lessons, assignments, and assessments (including essays and objective tests) early in the first quarter that will assume you are familiar with the above-listed myths and that will require you to write intelligently about them. Any reading and preparation work you do before the school year starts will better prepare you to do well on these assignments and assessments (and will lessen your workload during the first weeks of the school year). We hope you have an enjoyable summer, and we look forward to seeing you in August. Regards, Arcadia English Department Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Review Reading 19. Based on the characteristics of their gods, what Questions are some things that the Greek gods suggest English II Honors about Greek attitudes toward life? Please type your answers to the following questions. 20. How did Zeus become ruler of the gods? Be detailed and type your answers in complete 21. Who were some of the lesser gods? Which of sentences. Please label each section of reading and them, if any, are you familiar with? follow the numbering system on this sheet. *Be 22. Who were the Muses and the Graces? ready to turn in your answers electronically to 23. How is the term “muse” used today? (There are turnitin.com within the first two weeks of school. at least a couple different uses/definitions.) 24. Who were the Fates? Introduction to Classical Mythology The Two Great Gods of Earth 1. What is Greek and Roman mythology supposed 25. How and why was Persephone taken from her to show us? According to this view, little mother? distinction had been made between what two 26. What real-world occurrence is explained by the things when the myths were being shaped? myth of Persephone? 2. But what really lurked in the world of the creators 27. Do you think Demeter was a good mother? Why of the first myths? or why not? 3. The Greek myths show us that the Greeks had 28. What Greek views of male/female relations might changed in what way by the time we know of be revealed by the story of Persephone? them? 29. How did Pentheus die? 4. When were the myths first told in their present 30. Do you think Dionysus was responsible for shape? Pentheus’ death? Why? 5. Who created the myths as we know them? 31. How does the view of alcohol promoted by this 6. What is the first written record of Greece, and story compare to views about it held by people who wrote it? today? 7. Why should that be important to us to know what How the World and Mankind were Created the early Greeks were like? 32. What is the “theogony”? 8. With the Greeks, a new point of view dawned. 33. How were heaven and earth formed? What was this new point of view? 34. Who were the children of Mother Earth and 9. In what image did the Greeks make their gods? Father Heaven? And how was this different than gods created by 35. Why was Prometheus punished? earlier peoples? 36. Do you think Prometheus is admirable? Why? 10. With the coming of the new idea of gods, how did 37. The gods are a “family,” of sorts. Describe a the universe change? family you can think of (either in real life or in 11. How did the Greeks feel about their gods? literature, movies, etc.) that they resemble. Briefly describe how the Greek gods sometimes The Earliest Heroes behaved. 38. How and why was Io punished? 12. According to Hamilton, myths are not religious in 39. How did Prometheus try to comfort Io? nature. Instead, what do myths explain? 40. In the story of Europa, why did Zeus change 13. Some myths explain nothing. What purpose do himself into a bull? these tales serve? 41. Why do you suppose Europe was named after 14. The myths are early this particular woman? _________________________ as well as early 42. If our country could be renamed with a myth- _____________________________. derived name, what name would you suggest? 15. Who was the most prolific storyteller of Why? mythology, and why does Hamilton avoid using 43. Why did Odysseus blind Polyphemus? him as a source? 44. Do you have any sympathy for Polyphemus? 16. Hamilton lists 14 storytellers or myth creators. Why? List them, and for each one list and/or describe 45. How and why is Echo punished? what they wrote. 46. What might the moral of the Narcissus story be? The Gods (Consider: On the one hand, the man was turned 17. Who were the Titans, and who was their leader? into a flower, but on the other hand, it’s a 18. What 12 great Olympian gods succeeded the beautiful flower—one we still prize today.) Titans? (You should know both their Greek and 47. How did the anemone flower supposedly come Roman names.) into being? Eight Brief Tales of Lovers 72. How did Theseus’ father die? 48. What natural phenomenon does the story of 73. What did the Greek attitude toward taking one’s Pyramus and Thisbe explain? own life seem to be? 49. The plot of the Pyramus and Thisbe story is Hercules strikingly similar to—and indeed is one of the 74. How did Hercules show his “specialness” at an inspirations of—which famous play by William early age? Shakespeare? 75. Theseus was the thinking man’s hero. What was 50. Which other Shakespearean play, a comedy, Hercules? incorporates the story of Pyramus and Thisbe? 76. What did Hercules do that he could almost not 51. Why did Orpheus fail to bring his wife back from bear, and that Theseus had to help him deal Hades? with? 52. What are “halcyon days”? 77. Why did Hercules have to perform the 12 labors? 53. What kind of medication is Halcyon? 78. How did Hercules die? 54. Pygmalion falls in love with a statue rather than a 79. Why do you think that Hercules is one of the real woman, and then he is rewarded for his most well-known and well-liked of the Greek devotion to this “perfect” woman when she is heroes? brought to life. How do you think this story might 80. Which hero, Theseus or Hercules, do you think have been used by some in the days when it was would be more likely to be seen as a hero today? told? Explain. 55. Which play by George Bernard Shaw is titled with Perseus and Atlanta a reference to the story of Pygmalion and 81. How and why did Acrisius put his daughter and Galatea? And what is the movie musical grandson in danger? adaptation of Shaw’s play called? 82. How and why did Perseus slay Medusa? 56. Would you describe the relationship between 83. Do you have any sympathy for Medusa? Why? Endymion and the Moon as a healthy one? 84. Who raised Atalanta? Why? 85. Why did Atalanta race her suitors? 57. Was Daphne’s transformation into a laurel tree 86. Men willingly risked death to marry Atlanta—a worth it? Explain. woman they knew very little about. What does 58. Why do you think there might have been so this detail of the story suggest about how the many myths about women who wanted nothing ancient Greeks viewed women? to do with men? 87. How did Hippomenes win Atalanta? How do you Four Great Adventures think she felt about the whole thing? 59. Why did Zeus kill Phaethon? 88. What does Hippomenes’ method of winning 60. Who was most to blame for Phaethon’s death— Atalanta’s hand suggest about women (from an Phaethon, his father, or Zeus? Explain. ancient Greek point of view)? 61. Who was Bellerophon’s father, and why did the The Adventures of Odysseus gods kill him? What does this suggest about the 89. Why didn’t Odysseus go right home after the gods and their feelings about humans? war? Why were the gods angry? What does this 62.