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1.4 Myth, Heroes, Humors


( Due: Sun, 16 Jan | Status: Not Completed )
1. Read the Preface to and Chapter 1 of Heroes & Villains (p. ix-22)
2. Consider the following:
a. What is the role of myth, according to Alsford?
b. Alsford cites a number of philosophers in Chapter 1 – do you feel that you understand him, and them? If you’re confused, look these thinkers up online (Wikipedia is fine for this).
c. What is Alsford’s view of heroes and villains? How does who he is (a professor, a philosopher, a Christian theologian) effect this?
3. Read Honeybadger’s post about myth and fantasy:
4. Consider these questions:
a. In what points does Honeybadger’s claim about the nature of myth agree with Campbell? With Alsford? Where does he differ?
b. What are the advantages of myth? Of fantasy? (as he defines them)
c. Honeybadger is versed in African mythology – does this influence his definition of the term?
d. Would you describe the story you’ve been working on as realistic, mythic, a fantasy or something else? Why?
5. Read “The difference between drama and melodrama:”
6. Consider these questions:
a. What does it mean to have the victim, victimizer and rescuer (or victim, villain and hero) switch roles? What would it take for your protagonists to become villains? And if they did, what would it take for them to become heroes again?
b. Do you have a villain or antagonist in mind for your story? Are that character’s motivations credible or melodramatic?
c. How is melodrama, as defined here by Donaldson, Truby and Frost, similar to Honeybadger’s definition of fantasy?
7. Listen to the In Our Time podcast “The Four Humors” on iTunes or at:


8. Watch “the 15 Minute Hamlet:”
9. Consider the following. Feel free to make use of you own experience of performances of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
a. How is Hamlet’s melancholia demonstrated even in this highly-abridged version of the play?
b. Hamlet is a famous character, and playing Hamlet is an aspiration of many actors. What does Shakespeare do to make Hamlet into more than just “the melancholy guy?”
c. What are the dominant humors of the other principle characters (Ophelia, Polonius, Queen Gertrude, King Claudius, Horatio, Laertes)?
d. Tom Stoppard, who wrote The 15 Minute Hamlet, also wrote Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, a comedy which those two minor characters are the protagonists and Hamlet is a victimizer or villain. The plot is faithful to Shakespeare’s original, meaning that Hamlet arranges to have Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern executed. How can a change of perspective change our impression of who the heroes and villains are in a story?

10. Watch the Keynote “Myths, Heroes, and Humors.” It should help you pull together all of today’s course materials. If anything doesn’t make sense, look it up online. After that, contact me for help and guidance.

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