The term mythology can refer to either the study of myths or a body of myths.^[1] For example, comparative mythology Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common is the study of connections between myths from different cultures,^[2] whereas Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece. Modern scholars refer to the myths and study them in an attempt to throw light on the is the body of myths from ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian. The term "myth" is often used colloquially A colloquialism is a linguistic phrase that is characteristic of or only appropriate for casual, ordinary, familiar, and/or informal written or spoken conversation, rather than for formal speech, standard writing, or paralinguistics. Dictionaries often display colloquial words and phrases with the abbreviation colloq. as an identifier to refer to a false story;^[3][4] however, the academic use of the term generally does not pass judgment on its truth or falsity.^[4][5] In the study of folklore Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics. The adjective "folkloristic" for an academically oriented study is also, a myth is a symbolic narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form.^[5][6][7] Many scholars in other fields use the term "myth" in somewhat different ways.^[7][8][9] In a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story.^[10]

Nature of myths

Typical characteristics

The main characters in myths are usually gods or supernatural heroes.^[11][12][13] As sacred stories, myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and closely linked to religion.^[11] In the society in which it is told, a myth is usually regarded as a true account of the remote past.^{[11][12][14][15]} In fact, many societies have two categories of traditional narrative—(1) "true stories", or myths, and (2) "false stories", or fables.^[16] Myths generally take place in a primordial age, when the world had not yet achieved its current form.^[11] They explain how the world gained its current form^{[5][6][7][17]} and how customs, institutions, and taboos were established.^[11][17]

Related concepts

Closely related to myth are legend A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude. Legend, for its active and passive participants includes no happenings that are outside the realm of "possibility", defined by a highly flexible and folktale Folklore consists of culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and usually. Myths, legends, and folktales are different types of traditional story.^[18] Unlike myths, folktales can take place at any time and any place, and they are not considered true or sacred events by the societies that tell them.^[11] Like myths, legends are stories that are traditionally considered true; however, they are set in a more recent time, when the world was much as it is today.^[11] Also, legends generally feature humans as their main characters, whereas myths generally focus on superhuman characters.^[11]

The distinction between myth, legend, and folktale is meant simply as a useful tool for grouping traditional stories.^[19] In many cultures, it is hard to draw a sharp line between myths and legends.^[20] Instead of dividing their traditional stories into myths, legends, and folktales, some cultures divide them into two categories — one that roughly corresponds to folktales, and one that combines myths and legends.^[21] Even myths and folktales are not completely distinct: a story may be considered true — and therefore a myth — in one society, but considered fictional — and therefore a folktale — in another society.^[22][23] In fact, when a myth loses its status as part of a religious system, it often takes on traits more typical of folktales, with its formerly divine characters reinterpreted as human heroes, giants, or fairies.^[12]

Myth, legend, and folktale are only a few of the categories of traditional stories. Other categories include anecdotes An anecdote is a short, free-standing tale narrating a curious and biographical incident, often related to a topic. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place. However, over time, and some kinds of jokes A joke is a short story or ironic depiction of a situation communicated with the intent of being humorous. These jokes will normally have a punchline that will end the sentence to make it humorous. A joke can also be a single phrase or statement that employs sarcasm.^[19] Traditional stories, in turn, are only one category within folklore, which also includes items such as gestures, costumes, and music.^[23]

Origins of myth

Euhemerism

One theory claims that myths are distorted accounts of real historical events.^[24][25] According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborated upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gained the status of gods.^[24][25] For example, one might argue that the myth of the wind-god Aeolus Aeolus or Eolus (Greek: Αἴολος Aiolos [ájjolos], Modern Greek: [ˈe.olos] ) was the ruler of the winds in Greek mythology. In fact this name was shared by three mythic characters. These three personages are often difficult to tell apart, and even the ancient mythographers appear to have been perplexed about which Aeolus was which. Diodorus evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret the winds.^[24] Herodotus Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who lived in the 5th century BC (c. 484 BC – c. 425 BC). He was born in Caria, Halicarnassus (modern day Bodrum, Turkey). He is regarded as the "Father of History" in Western culture. He was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain (5th century BC) and Prodicus Prodicus of Ceos was a Greek philosopher, and part of the first generation of Sophists. He came to Athens as ambassador from Ceos, and became known as a speaker and a teacher. Plato treats him with greater respect than the other sophists, and in several of the Platonic dialogues Socrates appears as the friend of Prodicus. Prodicus made linguistics made claims of this kind.^[25] This theory is named "euhemerism" after the novelist Euhemerus Euhemerus (working late fourth century B.C.) was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea (c.320 BC), who suggested that the Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.^[25][26]

Allegory

Some theories propose that myths began as allegories Allegory is a figurative mode of representation conveying meaning other than the literal. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation. Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often. According to one theory, myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo , is one of the most important and diverse of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; medicine, healing, and plague; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and represents fire, Poseidon Poseidon was the god of the sea, storms, and, as "Earth-Shaker," of earthquakes in Greek mythology. The name of the sea-god Nethuns in Etruscan was adopted in Latin for Neptune in Roman mythology: both were sea gods analogous to Poseidon. Linear B tablets show that Poseidon was venerated at Pylos and Thebes in pre-Olympian Bronze Age represents water, and so on.^[25] According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena Athena or Athene (/əˈθiːniː/; Attic: Ἀθηνᾶ, Athēnā or Ἀθηναία, Athēnaia; Epic: Ἀθηναίη, Athēnaiē; Ionic: Ἀθήνη, Athēnē; Doric: Ἀθάνα, Athana; Latin: Minerva), also referred to as Pallas Athena (Παλλάς Αθηνά; pronounced /ˈpæləs/), is the goddess of war, civilization, wisdom, strength, represents wise judgment, Aphrodite |} Aphrodite is the Greek goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality. According to Greek poet Hesiod, she was born when Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and threw them into the sea, and from the aphros (sea foam) arose Aphrodite represents desire, etc.^[25] The 19th century Sanskritist The Sanskrit grammatical tradition of vyākaraṇa is one of the six Vedanga disciplines. It has its roots in late Vedic India, and includes the famous work, Aṣṭādhyāyī, of Pāṇini (ca. 4th century BCE) Max Müller Friedrich Max Müller , more regularly known as Max Müller, was a German philologist and Orientalist, one of the founders of the western academic field of Indian studies and the discipline of comparative religion. Müller wrote both scholarly and popular works on the subject of Indology, a discipline he introduced to the British reading public, supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed that myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature, but gradually came to be interpreted literally: for example, a poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally, and the sea was then thought of as a raging god.^[27]

Personification

Some thinkers believe that myths resulted from the personification of inanimate objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshipped natural phenomena such as fire and air, gradually coming to describe them as gods.^[28] For example, according to the theory of mythopoeic thought Mythopoeic thought is a hypothetical stage of human thought preceding modern thought, proposed by Henri Frankfort and his wife Henriette Antonia Frankfort in the 1940s. According to this proposal, there was a "mythopoeic" stage, in which humanity did not think in terms of generalizations and impersonal laws: instead, humans saw each, the ancients tended to view things as persons, not as mere objects;^[29] thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, thus giving rise to myths.^[30]

The myth-ritual theory

According to the myth-ritual theory, the existence of myth is tied to ritual.^[31] In its most extreme form, this theory claims that myths arose to explain rituals.^[32] This claim was first put forward by the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith William Robertson Smith was a Scottish orientalist, Old Testament scholar, professor of divinity, and minister of the Free Church of Scotland. He was an editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica and contributor to the Encyclopaedia Biblica. He is also known for his book Religion of the Semites, which is considered a foundational text in the.^[33] According to Smith, people begin performing rituals for some reason that is not related to myth; later, after they have forgotten the original reason for a ritual, they try to account for the ritual by inventing a myth and claiming that the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth.^[34] The anthropologist James Frazer Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion had a similar theory. Frazer believed that primitive man starts out with a belief in magical laws; later, when man begins to lose faith in magic, he invents myths about gods and claims that his formerly magical rituals are religious rituals intended to appease the gods.^[35]

Functions of myth

One of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior.^[36][37] The figures described in myth are often the result of circumstances which may have a moral interpretation. They are worthy role models of human beings because they embody certain combinations of human and animal traits. For example, the Centaur is part man, part beast. The upper body, being human is a symbol of rationality. The lower body, being of a horse is a symbol of animal instinct. The Centaur thus represents the uniquely human psychological challenge of animal instinct in relation to the rational mind. This example shows that myths are not only valuable due to cultural assumption (or 'spirituality'), but because they portray a set of symbols which can be interpreted morally. It is not necessary to introduce divine experience to explain these symbols, since a symbol is by definition a depiction of an idea in physical form. (bird = power, horse = beast, tree = knowledge).

Prior to the modern age experience of life is embedded in religion or in cosmology (story-telling), and not separate from it. This is because in pre-modern cultures, religion was not an "experience to enter into", but a way in which life was organized around story telling and was thus present in all aspects of life.^[38].

In post-modern cultures, myths may provide what is called a "religious experience". This function of myth is to detach oneself from the present and return to the mythical age, thereby bringing oneself closer to the divine.^[14][37][39] In fact, in some cases, a society will reenact a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age: for example, it will reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.^[40]. One of the reasons modern culture explores "religious experience" is because it is not the job of science to define human morality, therefore a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral-past, which is in contrast with the technological present.^[41]

In the function of myth, it is important to distinguish between mythology itself, and the concept of a mythical era. Claude Levi-Strauss shows that mythology may be derived, like science, as a natural outcome of the relationship between conscious human beings and nature. Cultures create mythological beings in order to explain human behavior. For example, a person who acts maliciously may be described as like a snake. Over time, this becomes a myth of a snake-man. The idea of a mythical era, however, is a modern construct which is not real in any sense, because it is not possible to a specific time in the past or present when human myths did not exist.^[42]

Mythological beings are still being created today. One modern myth, Frankenstein ^[43], is an abominable, part-human creature resulting from a scientist who has lost touch with any moral sense. Another modern myth is the android, a machine which resembles a human in ever other way, but does not actually exist in reality. However, one of the primary reasons they are considered in science fiction, now, is because they represent the idea of a rational machine attempting to be human. Both examples, although they do not exist, introduce moral questions which are useful to humans.

The study of mythology: a historical overview

Historically, the important approaches to the study of mythology have been those of Vico Giovanni Battista Vico or Vigo (23 June 1668 – 23 January 1744) was an Italian philosopher, rhetorician, historian, and jurist. A critic of modern rationalism and apologist of classical antiquity, Vico's magnum opus is titled "Principles/Origins of [re]New[ed] Science about the Common Nature of Nations" (Principi di Scienza Nuova d', Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German Idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend. Interpreting Schelling's philosophy is often, Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ] was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang Goethe. They frequently, Jung Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung is often considered the first modern psychologist to state that the human psyche is "by nature religious" and to explore it in depth. Though not the first to analyze dreams, he has become perhaps the most well known pioneer in, Freud Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was a Jewish Austrian neurologist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychiatry. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression, and for creating the clinical practice of psychoanalysis for treating, Lévy-Bruhl Lucien Lévy-Brühl was a French scholar trained in philosophy, who made contributions to the budding fields of sociology and ethnology. His primary field of study involved primitive mentality, Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss (French pronunciation: [klod levi stʁos]; was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called the "father of modern anthropology", Frye Herman Norrie Northrop Frye, CC, FRSC was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice. Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars. One of the approaches to this problem is "the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory",.^[44]

This section describes trends in the interpretation of mythology in general. For interpretations of specific similarities and parallels between the myths of different cultures, see Comparative mythology Comparative mythology is the comparison of myths from different cultures in an attempt to identify shared themes and characteristics. Comparative mythology has served a variety of academic purposes. For example, scholars have used the relationships between different myths to trace the development of religions and cultures, to propose common.

Pre-modern theories

The critical interpretation of myth goes back as far as the Presocratics Presocratic philosophy is Greek philosophy before Socrates. In Classical antiquity, the Presocratic philosophers were called physiologoi . Diogenes Laërtius divides the physiologoi into two groups, Ionian and Italiote, led by Anaximander and Pythagoras, respectively.^[45] Euhemerus Euhemerus (working late fourth century B.C.) was a Greek mythographer at the court of Cassander, the king of Macedon. Euhemerus' birthplace is disputed, with Messina in Sicily as the most probable location, while others champion Chios, or Tegea was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events, distorted over many retellings. This view of myths and their origin is criticised by Plato in the Phaedrus (229d), in which Socrates says that this approach is the province of one who is "vehemently curious and laborious, and not entirely happy . . ." The Platonists generally had a more profound and comprehensive view of the subject: Sallustius Sallustius or Sallust was a 4th-century Latin writer, a friend of the Roman Emperor Julian. He wrote the treatise On the Gods and the Cosmos, a kind of catechism of 4th-century Hellenic paganism. Sallustius' work owes much to that of Iamblichus of Chalcis, who synthesized Platonism with Pythagoreanism and theurgy, and also to Julian's own,^[46] for example, divides myths into five categories – theological, physical (or concerning natural laws), animastic (or concerning soul), material and mixed. This last being those myths which show the interaction between two or more of the previous categories and which, he says, are particularly used in initiations.

Although Plato famously condemned poetic myth when discussing the education of the young in the Republic – primarily on the grounds that there was a danger that the young and uneducated might take the stories of Gods and heroes literally – nevertheless he constantly refers to myths of all kinds throughout his writings. As Platonism developed in the phases commonly called 'middle Platonism' and 'neoplatonism', so such writers as Plutarch Plutarch, born Plutarchos then, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (Μέστριος Πλούταρχος), c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He was born to a prominent family in Chaeronea, Boeotia, a town about twenty, Porphyry Porphyry of Tyre was a Neoplatonic philosopher who was born in Tyre. He edited and published the Enneads, the only collection of the work of his teacher Plotinus. He also wrote many works himself on a wide variety of topics. His Isagoge, or Introduction, is an introduction to logic and philosophy, and in Latin translation it was the standard, Proclus Proclus Lycaeus , called "The Successor" or "Diadochos" (Greek Πρόκλος ὁ Διάδοχος Próklos ho Diádokhos), was a Greek Neoplatonist philosopher, one of the last major Classical philosophers (see Damascius). He set forth one of the most elaborate and fully developed systems of Neoplatonism. He stands near the, Olympiodorus Olympiodorus the Younger (c. 495-570) was a Neoplatonist philosopher, astrologer and teacher who lived in the early years of the Byzantine Empire, after Justinian's Decree of 529 A.D. which closed Plato's Academy in Athens and other pagan schools. Olympiodorus was the last pagan to maintain the Platonist tradition in Alexandria (see Alexandrian and Damascius Damascius , known as "the last of the Neoplatonists," was the last scholarch of the School of Athens. He was one of the pagan philosophers persecuted by Justinian in the early 6th century, and was forced for a time to seek refuge in the Persian court, before being allowed back into the empire. His surviving works consist of three wrote explicitly about the symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths.^[47]

Varro Marcus Terentius Varro , also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer distinguished three aspects of theology Theology is the study of a god or, more generally, the study of religious faith, practice, and experience, or of spirituality, besides political (social) and natural (physical) approaches to the divine allowing for a mythical theology Marcus Terentius Varro in his (lost) Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum established a distinction of three kinds of theology: civil (political) (theologia civilis), natural (physical) (theologia naturalis) and mythical (theologia mythica). The theologians of civil theology are "the people", asking how the gods relate to daily life.^{[citation needed]}

Interest in polytheistic mythology revived in the Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the, with early works on mythography appearing in the 16th century, such as the Theologia mythologica Theologia mythologica is a 1532 book by Georg Pictorius. It was one of the first treatises of Classical mythology in the German Renaissance. Pictorius interprets the Greek pantheon as allegory, e.g. Cybele as the Earth, her chariot wheels as symbolizing the rotation of the Earth (1532).

19th-century theories

The first scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the 19th century.^[45] In general, these 19th-century theories framed myth as a failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science.^[48]

For example, E. B. Tylor Tylor is considered representative of cultural evolutionism. In his works Primitive culture and Anthropology, he defined the context of scientific study of anthropology, based on the evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell. He believed that there was a functional basis for the development of society and religion, which he determined was universal interpreted myth as an attempt at a literal explanation for natural phenomena: unable to conceive of impersonal natural laws, early man tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, giving rise to animism.^[49] According to Tylor, human thought evolves through various stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas. Not all scholars — not even all 19th century scholars — have agreed with this view. For example, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed that "the primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development."^[50]

Max Müller called myth a "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages: anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were conscious beings, gods.^[51]

The anthropologist James Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law.^[52] According to Frazer, man begins with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When he realizes that his applications of these laws don't work, he gives up his belief in natural law, in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature — thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, man continues practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally, Frazer contends, man realizes that nature does follow natural laws, but now he discovers their true nature through science. Here, again, science makes myth obsolete: as Frazer puts it, man progresses "from magic through religion to science".^[35]

By pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories implied that modern man must abandon myth.^[53]

20th-century theories

Many 20th-century theories of myth rejected the 19th-century theories' opposition of myth and science. In general, "twentieth-century theories have tended to see myth as almost anything but an outdated counterpart to science […] Consequently, moderns are not obliged to abandon myth for science."^[53]

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1873–1961) and his followers tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung argued that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes. Jung believed that the similarities between the myths from different cultures reveals the existence of these universal archetypes.^[54]

Following Jung,^{[citation needed]} Joseph Campbell believed that insights about one’s psychology, gained from reading myths, can be beneficially applied to one’s own life.^[55]

Like Jung and Campbell, Claude Lévi-Strauss believed that myths reflect patterns in the mind. However, he saw those patterns more as fixed mental structures — specifically, pairs of oppositions (for example raw vs cooked, nature vs culture) — than as unconscious feelings or urges.^[56]

In his appendix to Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, and in The Myth of the Eternal Return, Mircea Eliade attributed modern man’s anxieties to his rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred.

Mythopoeia is a term coined by J. R. R. Tolkien for the conscious attempt to create fiction styled like myths.

In the 1950s, Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies.

Comparative mythology

Comparative mythology is the systematic comparison of myths from different cultures.^[2] It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to the myths of multiple cultures.^[2] In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between different mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This common source may be a common source of inspiration (e.g. a certain natural phenomenon that inspired similar myths in different cultures) or a common "protomythology" that diverged into the various mythologies we see today.^[2]

Nineteenth-century interpretations of myth were often highly comparative, seeking a common origin for all myths.^[57] However, modern-day scholars tend to be more suspicious of comparative approaches, avoiding overly general or universal statements about mythology.^[58] One exception to this modern trend is Joseph Campbell's book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which claims that all hero myths follow the same underlying pattern. This theory of a "monomyth" is out of favor with the mainstream study of mythology.^[58]

See also

Pantheism, Polytheism, Henotheism

General

Archetypal literary criticism, Artificial mythology, Comparative mythology, Creation myth, Deluge myth, Folklore, Legendary creature, LGBT themes in mythology, Geomythology, Monomyth, Mytheme, Mythical place, Mythography, National myth

Mythological archetypes

Culture hero, Death deity, Earth Mother, First man or woman, Hero, Life-death-rebirth deity, Lunar deity, Psychopomp, Sky father, Solar deity, Trickster, Underworld

Myth and religion

Religion and mythology, Magic and mythology, Hindu mythology, Christian mythology (Jesus Christ in comparative mythology), Jewish mythology, Islamic mythology

Lists

List of mythologies, List of deities, List of mythical objects, List of species in folklore and mythology, List of species in folklore and mythology by type, List of women warriors in folklore

Notes

1. ^ Kirk, p. 8; "myth", Encyclopædia Britannica
2. ^ ^{a b c d} Littleton, p. 32
3. ^ Armstrong, p. 7
4. ^ ^{a b} Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 1
5. ^ ^{a b c} Dundes, Introduction, p. 1
6. ^ ^{a b} Dundes, "Binary", p. 45
7. ^ ^{a b c} Dundes, "Madness", p. 147
8. ^ Doty, p. 11-12
9. ^ Segal, p. 5
10. ^ Kirk, "Defining", p. 57; Kirk, Myth, p. 74; Simpson, p. 3
11. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h} Bascom, p. 9
12. ^ ^{a b c} "myths", A Dictionary of English Folklore
13. ^ O'Flaherty, p.19: "I think it can be well argued as a matter of principle that, just as 'biography is about chaps', so mythology is about gods."
14. ^ ^{a b} Eliade, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, p. 23
15. ^ Pettazzoni, p. 102
16. ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 10-11; Pettazzoni, p. 99-101
17. ^ ^{a b} Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 6
18. ^ Bascom, p. 7
19. ^ ^{a b} Bascom, p. 10
20. ^ Kirk, Myth, p. 22, 32; Kirk, "Defining", p. 55
21. ^ Bascom, p. 17
22. ^ Bascom, p. 13
23. ^ ^{a b} Doty, p. 114
24. ^ ^{a b c} Bulfinch, p. 194
25. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Honko, p. 45
26. ^ "Euhemerism", The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions
27. ^ Segal, p. 20
28. ^ Bulfinch, p. 195
29. ^ Frankfort, p. 4
30. ^ Frankfort, p. 15
31. ^ Segal, p. 61
32. ^ Graf, p. 40
33. ^ Meletinsky pp.19-20
34. ^ Segal, p. 63
35. ^ ^{a b} Frazer, p. 711
36. ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 8
37. ^ ^{a b} Honko, p. 51
38. ^ Lila Abu-Lughod, Imagining Nature: Practices of Cosmology and Identity
39. ^ Eliade, Myth and Reality, p. 19
40. ^ Honko, p. 49
41. ^ Roland Barthes, Mythologies
42. ^ Claude Levi-Strauss, The Savage Mind
43. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstein
44. ^ Guy Lanoue, Foreword to Meletinsky, p.viii
45. ^ ^{a b} Segal, p. 1
46. ^ On the Gods and the World, ch. 5, See Collected Writings on the Gods and the World, The Prometheus Trust, Frome, 1995
47. ^ Perhaps the most extended passage of philosophic interpretation of myth is to be found in the fifth and sixth essays of Proclus’ Commentary on the Republic (to be found in The Works of Plato I, trans. Thomas Taylor, The Prometheus Trust, Frome, 1996); Porphyry’s analysis of the Homeric Cave of the Nymphs is another important work in this area (Select Works of Porphyry, Thomas Taylor The Prometheus Trust, Frome, 1994). See the external links below for a full English translation.
48. ^ Segal, pp. 3-4
49. ^ Segal, p. 4
50. ^ Mâche (1992). Music, Myth and Nature, or The Dolphins of Arion. pp. 8.
51. ^ Segal, p.20
52. ^ Segal, p.67-68
53. ^ ^{a b} Segal, p. 3
54. ^ Boeree
55. ^ For example, Campbell claimed that mythology's primary function is "that of eliciting and supporting a sense of awe before the mystery of being" (Campbell, p. 519), and that mythology also serves "to initiate the individual into the order of realities of his own psyche" (Campbell, p. 521).
56. ^ Segal, p. 113
57. ^ Leonard
58. ^ ^{a b} Northup, p. 8

References

• Armstrong, Karen. "A Short History of Myth". Knopf Canada, 2006.
• Bascom, William. "The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives". 'Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 5-29.
• Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. Whitefish: Kessinger, 2004.
• Doty, William. Myth: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood, 2004.
• Dundes, Alan. "Binary Opposition in Myth: The Propp/Levi-Strauss Debate in Retrospect". Western Folklore 56 (Winter, 1997): 39-50.
• Dundes, Alan. Introduction. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 1-3.
• Dunes, Alan. "Madness in Method Plus a Plea for Projective Inversion in Myth". Myth and Method. Ed. Laurie Patton and Wendy Doniger. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996.
• Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
• Eliade, Mircea. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. Trans. Philip Mairet. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
• "Euhemerism". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Ed. John Bowker. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC - Berkeley Library. 20 March 2009 .
• Fabiani, Paolo "The Philosophy of the Imagination in Vico and Malebranche". F.U.P. (Florence UP), English edition 2009. PDF
• Frankfort, Henri, et al. The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1977.
• Frazer, James. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
• Graf, Fritz. Greek Mythology. Trans. Thomas Marier. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Honko, Lauri. "The Problem of Defining Myth". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 41-52.
• Kirk, G.S. Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
• Kirk, G.S. "On Defining Myths". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 53-61.
• Leonard, Scott. "The History of Mythology: Part I". Scott A. Leonard's Home Page. August 2007.Youngstown State University, 17 November 2009
• Littleton, Covington. The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumezil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
• Meletinsky, Elea. The Poetics of Myth. Trans. Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky. New York: Routledge, 2000.
• "myth." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 21 March 2009
• "myths". A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC - Berkeley Library. 20 March 2009 Oxfordreference.com
• Northup, Lesley. "Myth-Placed Priorities: Religion and the Study of Myth". Religious Studies Review 32.1(2006): 5-10.
• O'Flaherty, Wendy. Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook. London: Penguin, 1975.
• Pettazzoni, Raffaele. "The Truth of Myth". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 98-109.
• Segal, Robert. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
• Simpson, Michael. Introduction. Apollodorus. Gods and Heroes of the Greeks. Trans. Michael Simpson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976. 1-9.

Further reading

• Stefan Arvidsson, Aryan Idols. Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN0-226-02860-7
• Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)
• Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
• Richard Buxton. The Complete World of Greek Mythology. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
• E. Csapo, Theories of Mythology (2005)
• Edith Hamilton, Mythology (1998)
• Graves, Robert. "Introduction." New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. Trans. Richard Aldington and Delano Ames. London: Hamlyn, 1968. v-viii.
• Joseph Campbell
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
  • Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension: Select Essays 1944-1968 New World Library, 3rd ed. (2002), ISBN 978-1-57731-210-9.
• Mircea Eliade
  • Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
  • The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. NY: Harper & Row, 1961.
• Louis Herbert Gray [ed.], The Mythology of All Races, in 12 vols., 1916.
• Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
  • Mental Functions in Primitive Societies (1910)
  • Primitive Mentality (1922)
  • The Soul of the Primitive (1928)
  • The Supernatural and the Nature of the Primitive Mind (1931)
  • Primitive Mythology (1935)
  • The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism (1938)
• Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
• O'Flaherty, Wendy. Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook. London: Penguin, 1975.
• Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 5th edition, Prentice-Hall.
• Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-87923-215-3.
• Walker, Steven F. and Segal, Robert A., Jung and the Jungians on Myth: An Introduction, Theorists of Myth, Routledge (1996), ISBN 978-0-8153-2259-7.
• Zong, In-Sob. Folk Tales from Korea. 3rd ed. Elizabeth: Hollym, 1989.

External links

• The New Student's Reference Work/Mythology, ed. Beach (1914), at wikisource.
• Leonard, Scott. "The History of Mythology: Part I". Youngstown State University.
• Myths and Myth-Makers Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by comparative mythology by John Fiske.
• Porphyry on the Homer's Cave of the Nymphs, tr. Thomas Taylor

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