摘　要

希腊神话是全世界英语学者的最基本的知识来源之一。它对英语国家的思想、词汇等一些方面都有着深远长期而又不可忽视的影响。美国是其中一个英语国家，目前，她也是世界经济中心，她的一举一动都对世界上的其他国家产生着不小的影响。写这篇论文的目的有两个，其中之一就是为了让英语学者们更多地了解希腊神话。第二个目的，是为了更好更彻底地了解美国。该文主要研究希腊神话对美国在思想（英雄崇拜和个人主义）、语言（主要是谚语和词汇）还有文学（波西杰克逊和其他一些主要文学）方面的影响。在思想的英雄主义层面，本文以普罗米修斯和雅典娜为英雄代表来展开讨论，探讨了为什么美国人民如此崇拜英雄；在文学方面，本文以最近被流传为“继哈利波特之后最为广受欢迎的科幻小说”——波西杰克逊为典型来展开。论文中所运用到的研究方法有文献法、观察法和描述法。

关键词：希腊神话；美国；文化

Abstract

Greek Mythology is one of the basic foundations of English learners all over the world. It has such an important effect on the thoughts and vocabulary of English speaking countries which cannot be ignored. America, one of those English speaking countries; and it is the economy center of the world nowadays. It has a lot effect on other countries of the whole world. The purpose of this paper one is to help English learners to know more about the Greek Mythology. And second purpose would be a clear understanding of America. In this paper, the main subject would be the impact of Greek mythology on American thoughts (hero-worship and individualism), language (idioms and words) and literature (Percy Jackson and other mainstream literatures). In the hero-worship level of thoughts in this paper, Prometheus and Athena would be the speakers of heroes. In the level of literature, Percy Jackson— the so called best seller after Harry Porter as a typical example. The methods in the paper would be reference methodology, observation methodology, and descriptive methodology.

Key words: Greek Mythology; America; Culture

1 Introduction
Greek Mythology is the foundation common sense of the ones who study English. And America is the economy center of the world at present. Her culture of course does have the influence which could not be understated. So both of them are important to the people whether they are English learners or not. This paper focuses on the influence of Greek mythology on American culture. Many people have already done the research on the Greek mythology or the research on American culture. They are all very original and unique. This paper here is going to study the Greek Mythology and American culture as one unit because they are inseparable at a certain level and together they have a huge impact on the English learners and even the world.