Classics and mythology, what's the difference?

By Aurora Mackay-Scollay 7T3 and Arabella Ibels 7T2

Editors note: Come to classics club at Friday Lunch! -J

In our library at Uni High, there are two sections that both bear similar books: the Classics section and the Mythology section. But one question lingers: what's the difference?

🏺The Classics section🏺

Firstly, Classics section is represented by a little emoji of a greaco-roman vase in the school library. This section focuses on ancient texts like the Iliad by Homer or The Aeneid by Virgil. It also includes books that are groundbreaking for the era they were written or remain relevant today, and there are many other reasons why books are chosen for the classic section of our libraries. One of the main reasons this section is important today its effect on English itself! Many common phrases such as  “Don’t fly too close to the sun” hail from Classic literature, in this case - Icarus. These texts give a great sense of how ancient peoples viewed their Gods and the world around them, especially texts by Virgil. Virgil was a Roman poet and is now remembered as one of the greatest poets of history. While his most famous story is ‘the Anead’ he had written many others such as ‘Eclogues’.  Other surviving poets from the time include people like Ovid whose most famous piece was Metamorphoses. We would recommend this section to students learning Latin,  students who have an interest in ancient civilizations, or anyone looking for powerful compelling stories with great, Godly characters. 

🧚The Mythology section🧚

The Mythology section is represented by an emoji of a fairy, and it’s found at the end of the middle row of shelves in the Fiction area in the school library. The mythology section focuses more on retellings of classical mythologies such as Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythologies, these are just some of the more well-known mythologies. Some popular books in this section include Circe by Madalin Miller and Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan. One of the best parts of the mythology section is that, unlike ancient Greek or Roman authors, the modern-day ones are emphasizing the importance of seeing each and every perspective of a story. Many historical tales tend to push aside or mistreat many of the same demographics of characters, and many modern authors are now retelling some of the old stories from their perspective.

Sometimes, there are even several different versions of the same story, since these tales began when stories were only shared orally, they weren't properly written down until hundreds of years after they were born. This caused there to be differing origins or plot points that could sometimes depend on which part of the world you hear the story from. For example, the birth of Goddess Aphrodite can vary between myths, in some telling she was a child of Zeus and Dione, while in others she is born from sea-foam.  

Differences

Now let's get into the differences. Firstly they both cover different parts of mythology. The classics section holds books such as To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee meanwhile the mythology section like its name suggests only holds books on mythology (when we say mythology we also count fairy tales), not to mention that also most of the books in the mythology section are targeted towards younger children, while instead Classics are for people of an older age.

Similarities

There are as nearly as many similarities as there are differences. Firstly as we said before they both cover mythology. But some other similarities are also that just like today the ancient authors were able to create interesting complex gods and characters that would have multiple layers of character and these are probably what makes them so compelling in the first place, they feel almost human in their flaws but this shows that no matter the time or period these authors are in they can create compelling stories and characters just as well as we can today! One last similarity they share is their readers! People who like mythology! It is very important to learn about Greek mythology to help understand their ancient culture of the way that a lot of characters and gods reflect what they thought was true. For example, one of the reasons that women in Greek mythology are treated so poorly is because that's what the Greeks saw as true. 

Thank you for reading!