Mythology by Edith Hamilton Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Mythology
Book Review: Only for those new to Greek mythology
Summary: 3 Stars
Nice overview for someone new to Greek mythology. It covers the major figures and stories, but for anyone who has studied mythology, it is overly simplistic. The stories have been "sanitized," possibly for a younger audience. For example, Aphrodite is said to have sprung from the foam, but Hamilton chooses to omit the Uranus story explaining why she came out of the foam in the first place. Those with a serious interest in Greek mythology should look elsewhere.
Book Review: Edith Hamilton's Mythology
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an awesome book about Greek and Roman mythology. Hamilton is obviously very passionate about the subject, but she doesn't let emotion get in the way of her writing. She tells the myths like they are, occasionally using passages from other writers, like Ovid. Also included are family trees of the gods, heroes, and houses of ancient Greece, a short section on Norse mythology, and illustrations of scenes from the myths. This is a very refreshing mythology book to read-and it's so entrancing I read my copy in a day!
Includes:
Part I, The Gods, the Creation, and the Earliest Heroes
Part II, Stories of Love and Adventure
Part III, The Great Heroes before the Trojan War
Part IV, The Heroes of the Trojan War
Part V, The Great Families of Mythology
Part VI, The Less Important Myths
Part VII, The Mythology of the Norsemen
Book Review: "Mythology"- A Misleading Title
Summary: 3 Stars
Overall, "Mythology" is a decent introduction to Greco-Roman mythology, and when I read it in the third grade or so I loved it and it gave me a good base of knowledge. However, this year I had to study it in English class and just about memorize it, and my opinions about it have changed. This book is meant to be read as a textbook, looking things up when one feels it neccesary. That is how I originally read it. By no means should this dry, utilitarian tome be read cover-to-cover. Hamilton's writing style is concise and she gets her point across, but one cannot read more than one story at a time without nearly falling asleep. Reading Hamilton is a far cry from reading Homer or Sophocles. The most positive aspect of the book is its sheer comprehensiveness- Hamilton covers the gods and demigods thoroughly, as well as a large number of mythical tales. If you manage to force yourself through the whole of this book, you will gather from it quite a lot of information.
The title might lead you to believe that this book is a comprehensive look at mythology in general, but don't be fooled. In Hamilton's eyes, no culture or mythology is worth a second thought except that of the Greeks and Romans. She accuses all pre-greek religions of glorifying pain and sacrafice, which is not true at all. She says of the religions of the ancient world, "Mankind's chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then abroad lay in some magical rite, senseless but powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief." She belittles the lore of Egypt and Mesopotamia, calling the Egyptian goddess with the head of a cat "a rigid figure...suggesting inflexible, inhuman cruelty." It was the goddess of music! She describes the Greeks themselves, in pre-hellenistic times, as living "a savage life, ugly and brutal." She says of Greek mythology, "what the myths show is how high they [the greeks] had risen above the ancient filth...". Disgusting. How dare she call the mythology of the Egyptians and the Assyrians "filth"? She does mention Norse mythology in her book, but gives so tiny a glimpse of it that she ought not to have included it at all. She doesn't bother to go into any detail at all about the Norse gods, and ignores almost the entire Volsung saga, telling only the stories of Signy and Sigurd. She tells us nothing of Freja's disturbing obtainment of Brisingamen, the dwarf-wrought necklace, or of the ring of Andvari that brought such misfortune upon its wearers. She does cover the Creation and Ragnarok, though not in much detail.
This book should have been entitled "Greco-Roman Mythology" or "The Mythology of the Greeks and Romans".
Book Review: Outstanding and opinionated introduction to mythology
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read this book as a child and it was the first book I ever wore out. It relates all the key Graeco-Roman myths, with Norse myths treated perfunctorily at the end. Hamilton learned Greek and Latin as a little girl and wrote her books late in life; they read like the works of someone who spent a lifetime reading the classics for personal pleasure. Readers using this book as an introductory guide should be aware of Hamilton's prejudices: she prefers the Greeks to the Romans, and writers who believed in the stories to those who did not. As a result, you might be wrongly discouraged from classical authors such as Ovid (whom Hamilton seems to actively despise), even though Ovid's worldview is strikingly similar to our modern one and his writing vivid and enjoyable. But if you approach this book as an opinionated presentation by a genuine enthusiast, as opposed to an effort at scholarly objectivity, you will not likely regret being caught up in the passion the author brought to this material.Book Review: Zero Stars
Summary: 1 Stars
Just one word BBOORRIINNGG. You should only read this book as required reading.