摘要

神话是人类祖先留下的宝贵精神财富, 中西方神话内容丰富，风格各异，根植于不同的文化背景中。本文通过对中国神话故事和希腊神话故事的比较，从产生神话的民族生活背景、神话内容和神话发展以及神话对后世的影响等方面探讨了神话故事所折射出的中西方文化差异。从而对神话在中西方文化上的地位与影响进行评价。

关键词: 中西方文化；神话；文化差异

ABSTRACT

The mythology is the precious spiritual wealth persevered by our ancestors. Chinese and Greek mythology is rich in content and style, which is rooted in different cultural background. In this paper, compared between the Chinese and Greek mythology, it will discuss the Chinese and Greek cultural differences from the ethnic background of mythology, the content of mythology, the development of mythology and the influence of the mythology to the modern days. From these points, we can evaluate the status and influence of mythology in Chinese and Greek culture.

Key Words: Chinese and Greek culture; mythology; the cultural difference

1.    The introduction
1.1. The concept of mythology
Mythology is really kind of earliest fantasy oral work produced by humans. It is the literature work of our childhood. Mythology exists in primitive society and is a process which with the aid of imagination to conquer the forces of nature, to dominate the forces of nature and to visualize the nature of reality. It is the story about human, god and half-god recorded by later man. The generation of mythology is based on the low level of productivity of ancient times and the fight for survival on people. What’s more, it can increase the capacity of production and understand the nature.
     These descriptions of mythology are exemplified from literature work. In order to make it more sensible, I pick it up from the famous dictionaries. According to the Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary, “mythology” is defined as a story from prehistoric times, especially one that was told to explain natural events or to describe the early history of a people. In the explanation of the Longman Dictionary, “mythology” is defined as a group of myths, remarkable all the myths from a particular country, religion, or culture. Of course the Collins Dictionary has given more details about it, it is concluded that “mythology” is defined as ancient myths in general.