Theories of Myth

MYTH

• Myth: type of non-historical traditional tale

• Myths must be good enough to become traditional, worth memorizing & passing down from generation to generation

Myth Transmission

• Narrative force/charm• Functional relevance

– Explanation– Palliation– INSTITUTION– emotion

Who decides what myths to pass on?

Interested Parts of Community?

• Adult Males?• Rich & Powerful?• Ruling Body?• Religious Hierarchy?

Myths for the Individual

• Focus on Individual• Acceptance by Community acting

as Individuals (Freudian Wish-Fulfillment)

Purposes of Myth?

Purposes of Myth?

• Entertainment• Communication• Instruction

Types of Myth

• Cosmogony• Theogony• Metamorphosis• Aetiology • Hero Stories

Global Themes of Myth

1) Historians of Religion2) Antirationalists

AllegoricistsPsychologists (Freud, Jung)

3) AnthropologistsMythopoeicists (Levi-Bruhl, Biblical

Scholars)Structuralists (Levi-Strauss)

Historians of Religion

• Cambridge School• French

Sociologists• Myth closely

dependent on Ritual

Allegoricists

• Myth as allegory of nature or meteorological events

• Myth as primitive science; religious or magical vs. scientific explanation

Psychologists: Sigmund Freud

• Dream Symbols• Myth<=>Dreams• Myth as waking

person’s attempt to systematize incoherent visions and impulses of sleep world

Wish fulfillment

• Imagination of children, neurotics, primitive tribes

• Oedipus Complex• Son kills Father to

possess Mother• Guilt & Sin• God as Father to be

appeased

Psychologists: Jung

• Myth as projection of the collective unconscious of the race

• Unconscious symbols upon which society is based

• Symbols as categorization of roles

Symbols as Categorization of Roles

• Gender Roles– Man– Woman– Great Mother

• Age Roles– Wise old man

Anthropologists: Lucien Levi-Bruhl

Anthropologists: Lucien Levi-Bruhl

• Mythopoeic

• expressive, poetic & mystical

• active participation with phenomena

• anti-empirical

Modern

• logical & rational

• explanation of phenomena

• empirical

Anthroplogists: Claude Levi-Strauss

• Myth like language• Meaning from relationship between elements

• Similar relationships outside myth?

• Paired oppositions• Myth as logical model

mediating between opposites

Valentine’s Day is for Lovers

Eros/Amor/Cupid

Venus and Adonis

Death of Adonis