Understand in about 7 minutes
Bulfinch retells the gods, heroes, and monsters of Greek and Roman myth, with side trips into Eastern, Norse, and Druid belief, so a general reader can follow the references that fill Western literature.
Mind Map
Core Message
Bulfinch states his aim plainly at the start: the poetry and prose of his age are full of allusions to the old gods, and a reader who does not know the stories cannot follow them. The book exists to make those everyday references intelligible.
Most of the book retells classical mythology in order: the gods of Olympus, the creation, the loves and punishments of gods and mortals, the labors of Hercules and Theseus, the Trojan War, and the wanderings of Ulysses and Aeneas.
Bulfinch treats the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Hindus, and Scandinavians as branches of one Aryan stock, an idea common to nineteenth-century scholarship. He uses it to connect the Western myths with the religions of Persia and India and the gods of the North.
Bulfinch keeps the prose simple and quotes the poets who used each story, from Ovid and Homer to Milton, Keats, and Longfellow. The point is not interpretation but a clear, readable store of the tales a literate person was expected to know.
Summary
The Age of Fable is a handbook of mythology written for general readers. Its stated object is to teach those who do not yet know the writers of Greece and Rome, or the legends of the Scandinavians, enough of the stories to make the constant allusions in literature intelligible. Bulfinch assumes a reader who keeps meeting the names Jupiter, Pan, or Valhalla in books and wants to understand them.
The opening chapter sets the stage. Bulfinch sketches the Aryan family from which he says the Greeks and Romans descended, explains why the same divinity often carries both a Greek and a Latin name, and describes the Greek picture of the world: a flat disk crossed by the sea, ringed by the river Ocean, with Olympus at its center and happy peoples at its edges. This cosmology becomes the scenery for the tales that follow.
The bulk of the book retells the classical stories in sequence. It moves through the creation and the flood, Prometheus and Pandora, the loves and transformations of Apollo, Bacchus, Venus, and the rest, and the great hero cycles: Perseus, the labors of Hercules, Theseus and the Minotaur, the quest for the Golden Fleece, and the Trojan War with the later journeys of Ulysses and Aeneas. Monsters, nymphs, and oracles fill the gaps between the major figures.
Bulfinch then widens the frame beyond the Mediterranean. Separate chapters take up the modern monsters of medieval lore, Eastern religion through Zoroaster and the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, and Buddhism. He turns north to the Scandinavian Eddas, Odin and Valhalla, Thor and Loki, and the doom of the gods, then closes with the Druids and the early Christian settlement at Iona.
Throughout, the method is the same. Bulfinch tells each story plainly and then quotes the later poets who drew on it, so the reader sees both the myth and its use. The book is less an argument than a reference shelf: a readable, connected store of the fables that, in his view, a person needs in order to read Western literature with understanding.
Key Concepts
Bulfinch frames the old myths not as belief to be defended but as background knowledge needed to read poetry and prose, which are full of allusions to the gods.
It sets the book's purpose and tone. The stories are gathered for use, so the reader can follow references that would otherwise pass unnoticed.
The book treats the Greeks, Romans, Persians, Hindus, and Scandinavians as branches of one ancient stock whose languages and gods are related.
This nineteenth-century idea is the thread that lets Bulfinch place classical, Eastern, and Northern myth in one volume as kindred systems.
Bulfinch notes that the western branch of this race loved open-air nature and was willing to personify its powers, turning dawn, sun, sea, and wind into gods.
It offers a simple lens on where the myths came from: many gods began as the natural forces the early peoples lived among and worshipped.
Mental Models
Each myth is given plainly and then followed by lines from later writers, from Ovid and Homer to Milton and Keats, who used it.
It shows the reader the payoff directly: knowing the fable unlocks the passage of poetry that depends on it.
Before the stories begin, Bulfinch lays out the Greek map of earth, ocean, and heaven so the tales have a consistent stage.
It helps a reader place each story, since the geography of Olympus, Hades, and the encircling Ocean recurs throughout the myths.
Bulfinch explains that a single divinity often appears under both a Greek and a Latin name, such as Zeus and Jupiter, because the Romans adopted Greek gods onto their own.
It prevents confusion when the same god turns up under different names in different authors.
Selected Quotes
Such were the abodes of the gods as the Greeks conceived them.
Mars (Ares), the god of war, was the son of Jupiter and Juno.
The Roman poet Ovid gives us a connected narrative of creation.
Source
Source text: Project Gutenberg edition of Bulfinch's Mythology: The Age of Fable by Thomas Bulfinch.
HTML text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3327/pg3327.txt
Project Gutenberg states this ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever, subject to local law.
First published 1855; this Project Gutenberg text is the edition revised by Rev. E. E. Hale.