What does the connection between myth and mythos tell us about early Greek culture?

Classics 220: Greek and Roman Mythology

(1) Myth as mythos. Our term myth derives from the Greek word mythos, which has several meanings.
Prominent among these in Homer and Archaic Greek poetry is authoritative speech act. This term
describes an act of speaking that is so powerful that it can bring itself into effect. (E.g. Agamemnons
commands to Chryses, priest of Apollo, in Iliad, Book I, presented in the first lecture.) Select one myth or set
of myths from Homer, Hesiod, or the Homeric Hymns (all Archaic Greek texts) and explain how this
definition of mythos is (or is not) helpful for understanding it. What does the connection between myth and mythos tell us about early Greek culture?
(2) Gendering the Mythic World. Hesiods Theogony provides an account of how Zeus came to rule over men
and gods. This account serves to justify the (divine) structure of the world as it is known to Hesiod (and as
it is portrayed in most of our Greek sources from the Archaic and later periods). Yet Hesiods telling of the
origins of the gods also introduces obvious gender dynamics into the story of the origin of the world and the
gods. It institutes the rule of the omnipotent male father (Uranus, Cronus, Zeus), even as this authority is
often challenged and undermined by a crafty female deity (Gaia, Rhea). And such dynamics are not only a
feature of Hesiods myths. Choose a myth or set of myths and analyze them from the perspective of gender:
how are male-female, male-male, and female-female relationships depicted? What features are valued for
each gender? Why?