Aγγλικά Γ΄-Προχωρημένοι extra text
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- Τελευταία Ενημέρωση στις Τετάρτη, 06 Ιανουαρίου 2016 22:20
Aγγλικά Γ' τάξης, τμήμα Προχωρημένων (Κωστοπούλου Καλλιόπη)
Συμπληρωματικό υλικό στο Unit 5/ 'The myths we live by' του σχολικού βιβλίου.
What is a Myth?
When you look up at the sky, you can see the sun, moon, clouds, meteors, comets, planets, and stars. You may recognize certain star patterns, called constellations, such as the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper (also called the Big Bear and the Little Bear). You might know the names of the nine planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Did you know that many of the names of these heavenly bodies come. A simple definition of a myth is 'a story handed down through history, often through oral tradition, that explains or gives value to the unknown'.
Myths are often stories told by a particular people such as Indians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and others. They are especially linked to religious beliefs and rituals. Rituals were believed to invoke a type of magic that would aid the growth of crops, insure success in war, help achieve prosperity or make choices and promote stability in the land. If nothing else, when people thought that the gods favored a venture, they approached it with a positive attitude that in itself sometimes insured success. Songs, poems, and stories help to explain how people acquired basic things like simple speech, fire, grain, wine, oil, honey, agriculture, metalwork, and other skills and arts.
A myth is an attempt to explain other things as well, such as a certain custom or practice of a human society (for example, a religious rite), or a natural process, like the apparent daily motion of the sun across the skies. In their imaginations the Greeks of ancient times saw a god (Apollo) driving a golden chariot drawn by fiery horses and dragging the sun across the sky. Deserts and snow capped mountains were created when his son Phaeton took the chariot for a ride and could not control the strong horses. While we know today why the sun and moon are in various places in the sky during varied times of a day yet we nonetheless say the sun or moon rises or sets.
Myths were used to teach humans behavior that helped people live in concert with one another.In the eyes of the gods, excessive pride, or hubris, was the worst offense and deserved the worst punishment. Myths are stories about certain characters -- gods, goddesses, men, women, and, especially, heroes. The stories of their adventures, whether triumphs or tragedies, tales of honor or tales of vengeance, were passed down by storytellers from generation to generation. In this oral tradition, stories often became distorted so that, in reading mythologies today, there are often variations in the same story. The moral however remains the same.
In the ancient myths the gods are immortal -- they never die. The gods reach out and touch the lives of mortal humans, sometimes threatening them, punishing them or helping them. The stories are topics for great art, literature and music. One finds them used in advertisements, in political cartoons, even names of organizations or businesses. Look in the phone book to find Pegasus as a company name sometime. Knowing the ancient myths makes a study of art and literature more interesting ---and FUN!
Complete the sentences with the appropriate word
Myths are stories created to give _______________ to persons, places, and things.
They are especially connected with __________________ beliefs and rites.
These rites were thought to invoke a type of ________________, designed to help _______________ grow.
The sun seems to move in relation to the earth. The Greeks explained this by seeing the sun as a golden chariot drawn by wild ____________________.
Myths were used to teach humans proper __________________.
The gods considered ___________________, or excessive pride, to be the worst offense, deserving the worst punishment.
How is mortal humans life affected by gods?