Study of mythology - a fascinating field of knowledge.
Just as the phenomenon of myth belongs to the very core of human mind,
so theoretical interpretations of mythology ultimately aim at explaining
the essence of humanity. Study of mythology is at the crossroad of a multitude
of scientific disciplines: history; archaeology; linguistics; psychology;
anthropology; sociology; philosophy; arts and literature.
Ancient criticism of mythology:
Explaining myths presumes, of course, not believing in myths literally:
-- an outside view of the culture. Even among ancient Greeks not everybody
literally believed in myths: the best minds are always skeptical of popular
beliefs:
Xenophanes (VI B.C.), the founder of Eleatic philosophy (Sicily),
dismissed the stories of gods as a sheer immoral rubbish, which mirrors
the human behavior. (Gods~human shapes --Ethiopians--; -- horses - ? horse-shape?)
As opposed to polytheism of the popular religion, Xenophanes' own
views appear to be monotheistic . (NB: the earliest = most iconoclastic!)
Anaxagoras (V B.C.) very candidly regarded the myths of divine
transgressions, such as adultery, stealth, cruelty and deceit, as a sort
of the negative example for the posterity, explaining exactly what one
must not do. Anaxagoras worshipped the divine Mind (Nous ) as the
unifying force of the universe and thought of everything else as a mixture
of different particles. For this belief, Athenians brought him to the trial
on the charge of impiety and publicly burnt his works.
The moral philosopher Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was condemned
to death by Athenian court for no other crime than his moral and religious
attitudes. He believed in daemons as guarding messengers, dictating the
moral choices. His disciple Plato (427-347 B.C.) carried on the
Socratic ambivalence towards popular religion, believing that gods must
have been good and just, but -- it's the poets who entirely distorted the
truth with their fictitious accounts. So, Plato banned Homeric poems from
his ideal Republic (!)
Euhemerus (IV B.C.) offered a very sensible interpretion of
gods as ancient kings and celebrities, worshipped post mortem. This coined
the term Euhemerism - a view that reconciles the literal and critical
approaches to traditional stories.
Max Mu'ller, IE and Solar mythology - a reconstructive approach:
Surveys of the modern studies of mythology traditionally begin with
Max Mu'ller (1823-1900) - the student of Indo-European languages
, extremely knowlegeable, very accomplished and, later, much ridiculed
and disparaged scholar... For Max Mu'ller, myths reflect man's primary
ideas of the divine forces of nature through the development of language.
Sun was the first visible god (proto-monotheism ; he was a devout
Christian). Mu'ller's views layed the foundation of the so-called
solar
mythology (sol ). -- The Moon and stars included, = astral
mythology. Natural forces - thunder; rain; vegetation - were similarly
deified and rendered through myths. Mythical stories, thus, = the allegories
of natural phenomena; ~ ancient weathe-channel. (Already
Theagenes of
Region (VI B.C.) saw in myths the allegories of the natural forces.)
However, the theory of Max Mu'ller was far more intricate. His primary
focus of was the development of language. Mythical stories originated through
the growth of language, as the words changed their primary meanings: The
confusion of meanings gave rise to mythic stories. -- Theory of the sickness
of language ...! Give him his due...
For Max Mu'ller, the substance of myth is dictated entirely by its
origin from some primary source - the IE proto-meaning. With all his naive
tendencies and other shortcomings, we can appreciate the inquiry into the
origin of meanings. (A Big Bang of mind...)
In a way, Max Mu'ller foreshadows the modern structuralist approach
of Levi-Strauus : a linguistic theory of meanings and communication
. In newer literary criticism - Northrop Frye : ~ nature's cycles
and forces: myths of the summer; myths of the winter, etc... Also, IE:
George Dume?zil.
Cambrige Classical Anthropology - comparative approach:
Max Mu'ller's search for the primary meanings of myths in some hypothetical
pra-IE language was demolished by the end if the century with the rise
of the so-called Cambrige Classical Anthropology : tremendously
important, extremely influential and illuminating, and, of late, also much
repudiated body of research. (Great!)
A group of the scholars of classics, with Sir James George Frazer
(1854-1941) as their headmaster, included Jane Ellen Harrison; Gilbert
Murray; Andrew Lang; A.B. Cook; F.M. Cornford ,et al., who incorporated
the amassed ethnological information on the beliefs and ritual practices
of pre-industrial (primitive) societies to the study of classical
mythology. The data collected among African tribes; American Indians; Pacific
islanders and Australian aboriginals, as well as the folk beliefs of old
Europe, - nearly all of them having nothing to do with the classical world,
- reveal striking parallels to the myths and rituals of ancient Greece
and Rome, thus providing a clue to our understanding of the myths of classical
antiquity.
This most fertile field of scholarship grew out ot the attempt of James
Frazer to interpret a strange Latin cult of Diana of Aricia : The
sacred grove, the King of the Grove (rex nemorensis ) = ritual consort
of the virgin goddess Diana. He must be a fugitive slave; kill his predecessor
in single combat and pluck the bough from the sacred tree. Frazer soon
realized, - quite typically, - that in order to explain this ritual he
must first understand a whole number of other rituals of classical antiquity,
- only to find out, soon enough, that in order to do so he must have a
sufficient understanding of every ritual of every corner of the world.
Thus his monumental volumes of the Golden Bough emerged. The
major idea of Frazer is concerned with the institution of the primitive
sacred kingship , where the person of the ritually selected divine
king, often regarded as ceremonial consort of the goddess, embodied the
productive forces of nature. At the first signs of physical dacay the king
was sacrificed as an atonement for the group in order to propitiate the
gods, and a new king succeeded to the office, to serve his term and later
share the sacrificial path of his predecessor.
This school argues for the basic unity of the human mind and the
basic way of its progress from the primitive and pre-literate stages
to highly advanced, literate civilizations. The universal elements
vs. particular meanings of the initial myths. -- Mu'ller vs. Frazer:
For Mu'ller, the primary true picture is later distorted in consequent
ramifications; for Frazer, the true picture is emerging through combined
study of all variants. Primitive practices of pre-civilized societies survive
in the collective memories of culture, which refines, reshapes and articulates
them though myth, literature and art.
Ritualist theory.
Cambridge Classical Anthropology set the pattern of the ritualist
theory of myth. - Theodor Gaster; Lord Raglan ; Robert Graves
, et al. -- Mythic narrative is only the top of the iceberg, deeply imbedded
in the non-verbal cultural practices - active representations, syncretism
of art, worship, drama, social life. -- myth lives through periodic
reenactment - calendric or personal rites.
MYTH AND CULTURE : -- the origins -? -- diachronic.
-- the function -? -- synchronic.
Myth and mentality - ? origins of mythical thinking:
Yet the ritualist theory still leaves open the basic question: why
should the primitive mind work in so bizarre, yet universal ways? ...What
is the benefit of killing an aging king?..
French ehnologist Lucien Le?vy-Bruhl (1857-1939) proposed the
theory of the Primitive Mentality . This theory, brilliant, profound,
and vehemently criticized by the modern scholars, opposed to the use of
such words as primitive , has postulated the so-called
pre-logical
thinking (not to be confused with illogical!..) For Le?vy-Bruhl, the
primitive man is a philosopher and a dreamer, and the primary feature of
the emerging mind is its capacity for the mystical participation
. (~Primitive syncretism - Veselovlsy : all aspects of experience
are interconnected; life is not separated from art; art not divided into
genres; experience=creativity...) Thus, primitive man (perhaps not unlike
the modern man) through symbolic actions and myths reenacts, vicariously,
the essential way of his own existence.
Myth and society - Functionalism (Positivism; Charter theory):
For his modern critics, Le?vy-Bruhl appears both to underestimate and
overestimate the mental faculties of uncivilized folks. Later anthropology
has found the modern tribesmen or remote cultures of Australia, Oceania,
Africa or South America to be quite efficient and practical in their every-day
ways of thinking and doing things. The so-called Positivist or Functionalist
approach (= Charter theory ), represented by the works of Bronislaw
Malinowski and A.R. Radcliffe-Brown; Emile Durkheim and M. Mauss ,
- a very influential, and - quite barren, if you ask for my opinion, trend,
- interprets myths as a social institution which somehow helps to keep
the society together. Whatever is the origin of myth, - and they could
not care less about the origins, - its actual modern adaptation serves
certain pragmatic purposes.
Myth and language .
Structuralism:
Another trend of research concentrated on studying myth as a phenomenon
of language, or, simply, as a text. The most influential modern scholar,
French linguist Claude Le?vi-Strauss is the leading authority of
the so-called structuralism , extremely popular, influential, prolific,
sometimes illuminating and oftentimes dissapointingly tedious venue of
scholarship. The structuralist approach employs the theory of communication
through defining semantic oppositions within a text. Myth is regarded
as a textual message. Structuralism regards myth (and everything else,
for that matter) as an instrument of defining and mediating between all
kinds of binary oppositions , such as; cooked - raw; up - down;
ours - alien. In most cases, the oppositions symbolize the conflict and
mediation between the order and disorder; savagery and civilization.
Syntagmatic and paradigmatic connections : a very powerful observation.
Also, George Dume?zil : IE: tri-partite ideology/ social structure:
priests; warriors; tradesmen.
Studies of narrative pattern:
A branch of scholarship focuses on the textual properties of traditional
narrations: -- narratology , analysis of regularities and repeated
elements within the text. -- Vladimir Propp . (I studied under Propp...
He said: Who knows but one language, knows none; who knows but one culture,
knows none. ) His neat early book Morphology of Fairy-tale ,
takes a closer look at the common moves of Russian folktales: what is,
really, going on? He enumerates 31 function , or move, of the plot,
in various combinations, yet in a general sequence, where a typical firy-tale
hero is put to the task to fix a problem and has to go far away. On his
way he faces additional challenges, finds the magical helpers, faces the
antagonist, undergoes a stage of temporary death and, finally, fulfills
the primary task, gains an additional bonus and wins the bride.
-- Written in the roaring twenties... Suddenly became popular. (It
works!) Applied to other genres, such as heroic poems or myths. -- Propp's
later
Historical Roots of Fairy-tale , which remained by and large
unknown outside of Russia, was first to explain the origins of the genre
of fairy-tale from the rites of passage , enacted in tribal initiations
of boys into the new status of manhood . Similarly, the fairy-tale
of a girl put to difficult tasks, secluded and mistreated, who finally
overcomes obstacles and finds a husband develops from the collective memories
of pre-historic tribal initiations into womanhood. (A a work of high endowment!..
= historical approach...)
Modern historical interpretation of myth ~ primeval hunting; shamanism
etc. - Walter Burkert , Homo Necans; Structure And History in
Greek Mythology And Ritual.