WAYS OF INTERPRETING MYTHS Flashcards
Theories of myth interpretation may be roughly divided into two major groupings:
literal and symbolic.
ALAN DUNDES
a myth may have different emphases or levels of meaning.” Since it often serves more than one purpose, “a tale about human actions [can] contain more than a single aspect and implication” (39)
G.S KIRK
ften books on mythology conveniently forget that myth stories were once all believed to be “true” (in some sense). The problem arises when we try to figure out in what sense. Because belief is often so personal and individual.
AS A BELIEF SYSTEM
Early philosophers tried to rationalize the fantastic events in myth by claiming that they were distortions of historical fact. One of these fellows was a Greek named Euhemerus (c. 300 BC), who gave his name to any theory that claims that the gods were originally historical heroes who were later deified.
AS DISGUISED HISTORY
states that the allegorizing of myth “was in harmony with one of the basic characteristics of Greek religious thought: the belief that the gods express themselves in cryptic form–in oracles, in mysteries” (205).
ERNST ROBERT CURTIUS
Early philosophers were also disturbed by the seemingly immoral or amoral actions of their gods. The Greek philosopher Xenophanes (fl. c. 530 BC) wrote: “Homer and Hesiod have attributed to the gods all the things that are shameful and scandalous among men: theft, adultery, and mutual treachery” (quoted in Curtius 204).
AS DISGUISED PHILOSOPHY OR ALLEGORY
(4 BC-65 AD) ridiculed allegory as “foolishness” (Seznec 85), still, the method won out. A sixth century Latin work such as the Mythologiae of Fulgentius interpreted the rape of Leda by Zeus (in the form of a swan) as the “coupling of Power and Injustice–the fruits of such a union being, like Helen, inevitable objects of discord and scandal” (Seznec 89).
Stoic Seneca
Myths often present themselves as explanations of how nature works or how a certain benefit or ill came about. For example, Hesiod says that men burn only the inedible parts of animals (bones and fat) as a sacrifice for the gods because Prometheus once tried to trick Zeus by giving him bones covered with succulent-looking fat and giving humans the good parts. These sorts of “explanations” are called aetiological (“the study of causes”).
As pre-scientific explanation.
Using stories to illustrate a moral was very popular in the Middle Ages, when writers wanted to tell pagan myths without getting into trouble with Church authorities. Therefore, they asserted that the stories illustrated moral truths. For example, one Medieval poem, The Romance of the Rose, by Jean de Meun (1237–1305 AD).
As fables illustrating moral truths.
(This approach looks at how a story functions in a society rather than seeing it as a response to a demand for an explanation.)
As charters for customs, institutions, or beliefs.
This kind of explanation seems less like scientific cause and effect reasoning than a kind of logic of association.
G.S KIRK
The Romanian-born theorist of religion Mircea Eliade views myth as an effort to recapture the creative power of the origin of the world. This kind of power is necessary to maintain the divine order of the world and the seasons. This is one way in which myth functions as a charter for a sacred order of the universe and of society.
As religious power, or metaphors
for the unknown.
sees myth as metaphors or symbols of the unknown. This “unknown” is located in two places: in the spiritual realm and in the depths of the human psyche.
JOSEPH CAMPBELL
ritual is an act or series of acts designed to bring men into contact with higher spiritual powers. An early theorist of ritual, Arnold van Gennep, noted that ritual acts can usually be divided into three stages: separation, transition, and incorporation (15-21).
As expressions of religious rituals.
Because certain images or motifs common in myth would appear in the dreams or psychotic fantasies of his patients, the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) reasoned that many of these motifs or themes must be the products of some sort of “myth-forming structural elements in the unconscious psyche” (Jung 71). These elements he called archetypes (Greek, arkhe, beginning, original + tupos, mold, model)
As examples of psychological archetypes.
