Theories of Myth. MYTH Myth: type of non-historical traditional tale Myths must be good enough to...
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Transcript of Theories of Myth. MYTH Myth: type of non-historical traditional tale Myths must be good enough to...
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