• The English word is actually derived from a Greek word 'mythos'
• It there means 'word', 'speech', 'tale or story'
• Many myths are very possibly based in some historical reality
  • The stories of the Trojan war
• While we might in a myth see many fantastic elements, we cannot exclude the possibility that a myth had its origins in historical reality
• Myth then, if we wish to define it broadly, is a story which can be told either through words, or as we will see frequently in this course through painting, music, dance, or more modern media such as film or television
  • It is a story that may contain many fantastical elements

• There is no one correct interpretation of a myth

• Some myths are actually based in reality

• Some interpretations compare myths to the human experience

  • human nature & other universal truths

• Explain natural events such as the sun or constellations

• Psychologically: Connection between myths and deepest human desires (Jung and Freud)

  • Jung (like Freud) connects myth to the unconscious, but suggests that images in myths are 'archetypes' of behaviour
  • major criticisms of Freud and Jung:Their psychoanalytic approach to myth is too generalized, does not account for the differences between myths of distinct cultures

• Polish anthropologist Bronislav Malinowski: Tried to explain myths as stories which reflected social customs and beliefs

• French scholar Claude Lévi-Strauss: He saw myth as a way in which people are able to communicate, by mediating structural binary opposites

  • one can see underlying structural oppositions in myths of all cultures
  • e.g., the interaction of men and women
  • it assumes too rigid and universal a model of human thought across cultures.

• Branislov Malinowski: Saw myth as founded in the cultural and historical concept of a particular society

  • myth cannot be separated from its historical context
  • It recognizes universal truths in myth and accepts the application of the interpretative theories outlines above, such structuralism and psychology.

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Motifeme: Thirty-one functions or units of a cation that are constant in traditional tales (defined by V. Propp)

Vladimir Propp

• Discovered recurring patterns that happen across a lot of myths.
• Once the patterns are found, its easier to compare myths of different cultures

It is helpful to analyze myth into constituent parts

1. Perceptible pattern/structure will emerge
2. Will be possible to find same structure in other myths, making it easer to organize study of myths
3. Possible to compare myths of one culture with another
4. Easer to appreciate development of myth prior to literary presentation

Walter Burkert

• Broke down every myth into 4 theses
• Every well known myth follows a distinct structure. That's why they're so easy to remember.

1. Myth belongs to more general class of traditional tale
2. Identity of traditional tale is found in a structure of sense within the tale
3. Tale structures, as sequences of motifemes, are founded on basic biological/cultural programs of actions
4. Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance

• Lots of feminism, feministic approaches to myths (especially this involving women)

• To be considered a citizen, both your parents have to be citizens
• Women were considered citizens but did not gain the vote (anywhere in the world) until the 20th century
• Slaves were used
• All women were illiterate
• In art women were initially not allowed to be depicted nude

Basically, the connotations on rape were not as strong back then as they are now. Sometimes rape meant a brutal attack against a character's will, sometimes it meant a willing agreement. Most stories leave it open for interpretation

• Super prevalent and accepted, respected even
• Only unacceptable in the long term, or if promiscuous
• Mostly man-on-man, but some woman-on-woman appears infrequently (or is subtly implied)

• Its easy to read between the lines
• Many themes beneath supernatural/literal interpretations are family bonds
• Myths help us face our own conflicts
  • That's why they're so applicable

• A classical myth is a story that has attained a kind of immortality because its inherent classical beauty, profundity, and power have inspired rewarding renewal and transformation by successive generations.