1. Learn to distinguish between myth proper, saga/legend, and folktale.
2. Learn the fundamental differences between the Psychological, Ritualist, and Structuralist approach.
Types of Myth
Myth, mythos: "a traditional tale handed down through history with anonymous origin"
Mythology, mythos + logos (reason): A set of myths, or study of myth in general.
I. True Myth (a.k.a. Myth Proper, Divine Myth)
Concerned with the lives of deities, exempt from historical and factual timelines. The gods themselves are notable for their exaggerated human traits - virtues and flaws.
In the time these myths were told, people accepted True Myth as an explanation for what present day religion, science, and politics could not account for about the world, ie. weather, nature, fate, human behavior.
II. Legend (a.k.a. Saga)
Concerned with the lives of the noble classes of Greece, called heroes or heroines (heroic virtue was more defined by status in life than by chivalrous and valourous deeds)
Since these myths contain a kernal of historical truth, as proved by archaeological evidence and literary sources, they are analagous to history.
III. Folktale (a.k.a Fable, Fairytale)
Primarily for entertainment purposes, folktale features fictionalization for events for a variety of purposes, but often contain insightful didactic merit.
Types of Approaches
Though no one can establish a single, comprehensive definition of myth, the attempt to define them only attests to their importance, and have led to their resilience against time.Though many philosophers and academics have worked hard to find empirical, psychological, or cultural grounds for many mythical stories, the element of rationality often isn't necessary to make the experience meaningful. The truth in myth is in its relatability in human experience, on whatever level.
I. Etiological, aitia ("cause"): Etiological approaches explains an accepted purpose or revelation behind an observed occurance. For example, the etiological explanation for why Libyians were known to be black is because of Phaethon's dangerous flight in his fathers chariot, which ended up scorching the earth and the skins of the people occupying that area.
II. Allegorical: This approach uses sustained metaphor to reduce terms applying to universal events to figurative simplifications. For example, the physical allegory of the Gods is that they themselves are terms for physical elements (ie. Apollo = fire vs. Poseidon = water). A psychological allegory is that they are instead representatives of concepts, ie. Erabus = darkness, depression, Athena = love.
III. Rational: An attempt to apply logical critical evaluation to a myth, hoping to back it with factual explanation.
- Xenophanes:
1. Why do the gods' physical features, as manifested in local art, match the demographic
characteristics of the populations worshipping them? (ie. Why is Zeus black in Africa, have
red-hair in Thrace, etc...)
2. What is moral about worshipping those who are equally responsible for mischief as they are
good in the world? What is ethical about following the example of deities that commit
adultery, murder, torture etc.?
- Euhemerism: Claimed that the Gods were really just the great men of old that became deified through myth.
IV. Psychoanalytical: The human predisposition to myth indicates there is something about our psyche that connects with these stories.
- Freud: The latent manifestations of our subconscious appear in our dreams.
1. Dreamwork: Sleep condenses disparate elements of an understanding of our world, exaggerates
them, then represents them through symbols that we can interpret.
2. Oedipus Complex: A male childs first sexual feeling is attraction towards his mother, and envy
for his father.
- Jung: society has a collective unconscious that we tap into, independent of our individual unconsciousness reserved for our personal lives.
1. Archetypes: traditional symbols of expression are universally recorded by dreamers.
2. Electra Complex: A female childs' first sexual feeling is attraction towards her father, and envy
for her mother.
V. Structural: Myth can be broken down empirically into narrative structures that can be interpreted.
- Propp: All stories are composed of functional units of storytelling ("motifemes") arranged algebraically in prose.
- Levi-Strauss: myth is a mode of reconciliation between binary elements
- Burkert: Myth is a contextualized representation of a traditional tale. Because it has a historical subdimension, they reflect biological or cultural spins on human understanding at time. The identity of the tale is recognized now through motifemes.
