1. Overview of
MYTHOLOGY
LECTURE 1
ENG 107

2. mythology

3. WHAT IS MYTHOLOGY?
The
term mythology can
refer to either the
study of myths, or to
a body of myths.

4. WHAT IS A MYTH? (Wikipedia)
Myths provide people with In Folkloristics, a myth is
explanations, histories, role a sacred narrative usually
models, entertainment, and many explaining how the world or
other things that enable them to humankind came to be in its
direct their own actions and present form.
understand their own
surroundings.
A story that serves to define
the fundamental worldview of
a culture by explaining aspects
of the natural world and
delineating the psychological
and social practices and ideals
of a society

5. PURPOSE OF MYTHS
To explain the
inexplicable
to justify an existing
Purpose social system and to
account for its rites and
customs
to illustrate moral
principles, frequently
through feats of heroism
performed by mortals

6. NATURE OF MYTHS
•Main characters are usually gods or
supernatural heroes
•endorsed by rulers and priests and
closely linked to religion
•usually regarded as a true account of
the remote past
•generally take place in a primordial age

7. COMPARED WITH OTHER STORIES…
LEGENDS FOLKTALES
• set in a more recent • can take place at any
time, when the time and any
world was much as it place, and they are
is today not considered true
• generally feature or sacred by the
humans as their societies that tell
main characters them

8. ORIGINS OF MYTHOLOGY
Euphemerism Allegories
Myth-Ritual
Personification
Theory

9. EUPHEMERISM
One theory claims that myths are
distorted accounts of real
historical events. According to
this theory, storytellers
repeatedly elaborated upon
historical accounts until the
figures in those accounts gained
the status of gods.

10. ALLEGORIES
The 19th century Sanskritist Max
Müller 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.

11. 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. For example, according to the
theory of mythopoeic thought, the ancients
tended to view things as persons, not as mere
objects.

12. MYTH – RITUAL THEORY
According to the myth-
ritual theory, the
existence of myth is
tied to ritual. In its
most extreme
form, this theory
claims that myths
arose to explain
rituals.

13. FUNCTIONS OF
MYTHOLOGY

14. According to Mircea
Eliade:
1. to establish models for behavior
2. provide a religious experience
3. members of traditional societies detach
themselves from the present and return to
the mythical age, thereby bringing
themselves closer to the divine

15. According to Lauri
Honko:
1. to reproduce the
conditions of the
mythical age
2. to connect with a
perceived moral past,
which is in contrast
with the technological
present

16. According to Joseph
Campbell:
1. Mystical Function--experiencing the awe of
the universe;
2. Cosmological Function--explaining the
shape of the universe;
3. Sociological Function--supporting and
validating a certain social order;
4. Pedagogical Function--how to live a human
lifetime under any circumstances.

17. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
OF
MYTHOLOGY

18. PRE-MODERN THEORIES
•The critical interpretation of myth goes back as far as
the Presocratics.
•Euphemerus 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 criticized by Plato
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.

19. • Sallustius, 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.
• Interest in polytheistic mythology revived in
the Renaissance, with early works on mythography
appearing in the 16th century, such as the Theologia
mythologica (1532).

20. 19TH CENTURY THEORIES
• E. B. Tylor 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.
• 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.

21. • Lucien Lévy-
Bruhl claimed that
"the primitive
mentality is a
condition of the
human mind, and
not a stage in its
historical
development.“

22. • 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.

23. • The anthropologist James
Frazer saw myths as a
misinterpretation of magical
rituals; which were
themselves based on a
mistaken idea of natural law.
• 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.

24. • Robert Segal
asserts that by
pitting mythical
thought against
modern scientific
thought, such
theories implied
that modern man
must abandon
myth.

25. 20th CENTURY THEORIES
Swiss psychologist Carl
Jung (1873–1961) tried to
understand the psychology
behind world myths. Jung
asserted 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.

26. • Joseph
Campbell believed that
there were two
different orders of
mythology: that there
are myths that, "are
metaphorical of
spiritual potentiality in
the human being", and
that there are myths,
"that have to do with
specific societies".

27. Claude Lévi-
Strauss believed that
myths reflect patterns in
the mind and
interpreted those
patterns more as fixed
mental structures —
specifically, pairs of
opposites (i.e. good/evil,
compassionate/callous)
— than as unconscious
feelings or urges

28. • Mircea
Eliade attributed
modern man’s
anxieties to his
rejection of
myths and the
sense of
the sacred.

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

30. COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY
Comparative mythology is the systematic comparison of
myths from different cultures.
It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common
to the myths of multiple cultures.
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

31. Thank
you!