Significant people

Question 1

Max Müller (allegorical nature myths)

Answer 1

• theory that all myths are nature myths, all referring to meteorological and cosmological phenomena
• an extreme development of the allegorical approach

Question 2

Sigmund Freud

Answer 2

• emphasized sexuality (in particular infantile sexuality)
• theory of the unconscious
• interpretation of dreams
• identified the Oedipus complex (incest complex)
• concepts of symbols
• to protect sleep and relieve potential anxiety, the mind goes through a process of dream-work
• connections between dreams and myth

Question 3

Carl Jung

Answer 3

• freud’s contemporary and successor
• interpreted myths as the projection of what he called the “collective unconscious”

-archetypes
Humans are born with predictable and identifiable characteristics

Emphasize the psychological dependence of all societies upon their traditional myths

Question 4

Euhemerus

Answer 4

ca. 300BC

Claimed that gods were made deified for their great deeds

Question 5

Mircea eliade

Answer 5

Theorized that myths helped individuals know how to make sense of their world and how to behave in society
Religious ritual and myth helped them connect

-only fully satisfied by stories narrating the events surrounding the beginnings and origins of things

Question 6

J.G Frazer

Answer 6

Ritualist interpretation of mythology

Work: the golden bough, attempts to link myth with ritual

Question 7

Jane harrison

Answer 7

Similar to frazer’s interpretation

Question 8

Robert graves

Answer 8

Distinguished myth from 12 other categories

Question 9

Bronislav malinowski

Answer 9

Studied the Trobrianders
Discovered the close connection between myths and social institutions

Explained myths as “charters” of social customs and beliefs

Only valid for myths that involve the establishment of a ritual

Question 10

Claude Levi strauss

Answer 10

Links myth with society, like Malinowski

Saw myth as a mode of communication

Structuralism, assumes all human behavior is based on certain unchanging patterns, whose structure is the same in all ages and societies

Like the mind, myth is binary
Mode by which society communicates and finds a resolution between conflicting opposites

Influential upon the Paris school

Question 11

Vladimir propp

Answer 11

Developed structuralism

Studied Russian folktale
Described myth structure as liner, all elements occur in order

Divided his basic structure into 31 functions or units of action (motifemes)
Not all functions have to appear in each tale

Stated that fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure

Rigid sequence is too inflexible to be applicable to sagas

Question 12

Walter Burkert

Answer 12

Claimed myths have a “historical dimension” with “successive layers of development”

Four theses: 
Myth belongs to the more general class of traditional tale 
Identity of a traditional tale is to be found in a structure of sense within the tale itself 
Tale structures are founded on basic biological or cultural programs of actions 
Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance

Question 13

Joseph campbell

Answer 13

Comparative mythologist

Popularized the study of comparative mythology

Question 14

Heinrich schliemann

Answer 14

Laid the foundations of modern archaeological work in the Mycenaean age
Went to Troy, Mycenae, tiryns

Question 15

Sir Arthur Evans

Answer 15

Uncovered the palace of Minos at cnossus in Crete

Unearthed the Minoan civilization in my