Mythology

Mythology is the study of myths and or of a body of myths.[1] For example, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures,[2] whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece. The term "myth" is often used colloquially to refer to a false story;[3][4] however, the academic use of the term generally does not refer to truth or falsity.[4][5] In the study of folklore, a myth is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form.[6][5][7] Many scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in somewhat different ways.[7][8][9] In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story

Nature of myths

Typical characteristics

The main characters in myths are usually gods or supernatural heroes.[11][12][13] As sacred stories, myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and closely linked to religion.[11] In the society in which it is told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past.[11][14][15][12] In fact, many societies have two categories of traditional narrative—(1) "true stories", or myths, and (2) "false stories", or fables.[16] Myths generally take place in a primordial age, when the world had not yet achieved its current form.[11] They explain how the world gained its current form[17][18][7][19] and how customs, institutions, and taboos were established.[11][19]

Related concepts

Closely related to myth are legend and folktale. Myths, legends, and folktales are different types of traditional story.[20] Unlike myths, folktales can take place at any time and any place, and they are not considered true or sacred even by the societies that tell them.[11] Like myths, legends are stories that are traditionally considered true; however, they are set in a more recent time, when the world was much as it is today.[11] Also, legends generally feature humans as their main characters, whereas myths generally focus on superhuman characters.[11]

The distinction between myth, legend, and folktale is meant simply as a useful tool for grouping traditional stories.[21] In many cultures, it is hard to draw a sharp line between myths and legends.[22] Instead of dividing their traditional stories into myths, legends, and folktales, some cultures divide them into two categories — one that roughly corresponds to folktales, and one that combines myths and legends.[23] Even myths and folktales are not completely distinct: a story may be considered true — and therefore a myth — in one society, but considered fictional — and therefore a folktale — in another society.[24][25] In fact, when a myth loses its status as part of a religious system, it often takes on traits more typical of folktales, with its formerly divine characters reinterpreted as human heroes, giants, or fairies.[12]

Myth, legend, and folktale are only a few of the categories of traditional stories. Other categories include anecdotes and some kinds of jokes.[21] Traditional stories, in turn, are only one category within folklore, which also includes items such as gestures, costumes, and music.[25]

Origins of myth

Euhemerism

Main article: Euhemerus

One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of real historical events.[26][27] According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborated upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gained the status of gods.[26][27] For example, one might argue that the myth of the wind-god Aeolus evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret the winds.[26] Herodotus and Prodicus made claims of this kind.[27] This theory is named "euhemerism" after the novelist Euhemerus (c.320 BC), who suggested that the Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.[28][27]

Allegory

Some theories propose that myths began as allegories. According to one theory, myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents fire, Poseidon represents water, and so on.[27] According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise judgment, Aphrodite represents desire, etc.[27] The 19th century Sanskritist Max Muller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed that myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature, but gradually came to be interpreted literally: for example, a poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally, and the sea was then thought of as a raging god.[29]

Personification

Some thinkers believe that myths resulted from the personification of inanimate objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshipped natural phenomena such as fire and air, gradually coming to describe them as gods.[30] For example, according to the theory of mythopoeic thought, the ancients tended to view things as persons, not as mere objects;[31] thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, thus giving rise to myths.[32]

Mythopoeic thought

The myth-ritual theory

According to the myth-ritual theory, the existence of myth is tied to ritual.[33] In its most extreme form, this theory claims that myths arose to explain rituals.[34] This claim was first put forward by the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith.[35] According to Smith, people begin performing rituals for some reason that is not related to myth; later, after they have forgotten the original reason for a ritual, they try to account for the ritual by inventing a myth and claiming that the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth.[36] The anthropologist James Frazer had a similar theory. Frazer believed that primitive man starts out with a belief in magical laws; later, when man begins to lose faith in magic, he invents myths about gods and claims that his formerly magical rituals are religious rituals intended to appease the gods.[37]

Myth and ritual

Functions of myth

One of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior.[38][39] The figures described in myth are sacred and are therefore worthy role models for human beings.[39] Thus, myths often function to uphold current social structures and institutions: they justify these customs by claiming that they were established by sacred beings.[40][41]

Another function is to provide people with a religious experience. By retelling myths, human beings detach themselves from the present and return to the mythical age, thereby bringing themselves closer to the divine.[14][42][39] In fact, in some cases, a society will reenact a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age: for example, it will reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.[43]

The study of mythology: a historical overview

Historically, the important approaches to the study of mythology have been those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lévy-Bruhl, Levi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.[44]

This section describes trends in the interpretation of mythology in general. For interpretations of specific similarities and parallels between the myths of different cultures, see Comparative mythology.

Pre-modern theories

The critical interpretation of myth goes back as far as the Presocratics.[45] Euhemerus was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events, distorted over many retellings.

Varro distinguished three aspects of theology, besides political (social) and natural (physical) approaches to the divine allowing for a mythical theology.[citation needed]

Interest in polytheistic mythology revived in the Renaissance, with early works on mythography appearing in the 16th century, such as the Theologia mythologica (1532).

19th-century theories

The first scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the 19th century.[46] In general, these 19th-century theories framed myth as a failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science.[47]

For example, E. B. Tylor interpreted myth as an attempt at a literal explanation for natural phenomena: unable to conceive of impersonal natural laws, early man tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, giving rise to animism.[48] According to Tylor, human thought evolves through various stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas. Not all scholars — not even all 19th century scholars — have agreed with this view. For example, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that "the primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development."[49]

Max Muller called myth a "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages: anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were conscious beings, gods.[50]

The anthropologist James Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law.[51] According to Frazer, man begins with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When he realizes that his applications of these laws don't work, he gives up his belief in natural law, in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature — thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, man continues practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally, Frazer contends, man realizes that nature does follow natural laws, but now he discovers their true nature through science. Here, again, science makes myth obsolete: as Frazer puts it, man progresses "from magic through religion to science".[52]

By pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories implied that modern man must abandon myth.[53]

20th-century theories

Many 20th-century theories of myth rejected the 19th-century theories' opposition of myth and science. In general, "twentieth-century theories have tended to see myth as almost anything but an outdated counterpart to science […] Consequently, moderns are not obliged to abandon myth for science."[54]

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873-1961) and his followers tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung argued that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes. These universal archetypes express themselves in the similarities between the myths of different cultures.[55]

Following Jung, Joseph Campbell believed that insights about one’s psychology, gained from reading myths, can be beneficially applied to one’s own life.

Like Jung and Campbell, Claude Levi-Strauss believed that myths reflect patterns in the mind. However, he saw those patterns more as fixed mental structures — specifically, pairs of oppositions (for example raw vs cooked, nature vs culture) — than as unconscious feelings or urges.[56]

In his appendix to Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, and in The Myth of the Eternal Return, Mircea Eliade attributed modern man’s anxieties to his rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred.

Mythopoeia is a term coined by J. R. R. Tolkien for the conscious attempt to create fiction styled like myths.

In the 1950s, Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies.

Comparative mythology