Title: Myths and Arts Myths in the classical sense
1Myths and ArtsMyths in the classical sense
Department of Comparative Religion University of
Helsinki
2Whats a myth?
3Myths
- Myth is derived from the Greek word µ???? -
mythos, which simply means story, speech,
tale, discourse about divinities and heroes - "A traditional story, typically involving
supernatural beings or forces or creatures, which
embodies and provides an explanation, aetiology,
or justification for something such as the early
history of a society, a religious belief or
ritual, or a natural phenomenon (Oxford English
Dictionary) - refers to a body of narratives that a particular
culture believes to be true and that often use
the supernatural to interpret natural events and
to explain the nature of the universe and
humanity
4Myths true stories before history
- Myths often are said to take place before
recorded history begins - Myth is a sacred narrative, what is meant is that
a myth is believed to be true by people who
attach religious or spiritual significance to it
5Legends - Folk tales Fairy tales
6Differences
- Not all traditional stories are myths in
contrast to legends or folktales, myths are
narratives involving the sacred, either gods or
near-gods - legends are stories about the (usually more
recent) past, which generally include, or are
based on, some historical events are generally
focused on human heroes - folktales/fairytales (or Märchen, the German word
for such tales) are stories which lack any
definite historical setting and often include
such things as fairies, witches, a fairy guide
and animal characters - Myths are not the same as fables, legends,
folktales, fairy tales, anecdotes or fiction, but
the concepts may overlap
7J.R.R. Tolkien
- Writer, philologist, and religious thinker J.R.R.
Tolkien expressed a the opinion "I believe that
legends and myths are largely made of 'truth',
and indeed present aspects of truth that can only
be received in this mode."
8Active characters in myths
- The active characters in myths are generally ?
9Active characters in myths
- Divinities
- Heroes
- guardian spirits
- Spirits of the dead
- nymphs
- elements, forces
- sacred animals, normal animals
- cultural heroes
- tricksters
- monsters, hybrids
- fantastic animals
- kings, princes, princess
- skilled warriors
- enemies and villains
- Personifications
- Avatars
10Heroes
- Classical semi-divine beings
- Founders
- Models (Aeneas, pius)
- Or model and anti-model (Siegfried, Achilles)
- Problem of hybris
- Fall caused by excess
- Heracles-Romulus model transfiguration in gods
11Categories
- Ritual myths
- Origin myths
- Creation myths
- Eschatological myths
- Social myths
12Myths and rituals
- ritual is a set of actions, often thought to have
symbolic value, the performance of which is
usually prescribed by a religion or by the
traditions of a community. - Rituals are based on myths, are re-enactment of
myths - Rituals are historical, conservatives but dynamic
- Ritual are often connected to passages,
boundaries and changes - Van Gennep
- Previous status liminarity new status
13Myths in oral cultures
- Myths in oral culture has local variations and
individual variations - The myths arent dogmatic at all
- Myths are often ambiguous also in their
significance they need to be interpreted they
call for an interpretation are object of
discussions and philosophical speculations
14Greimas and Courtés (Semiticians)
- The myths hit light the deep-lying aspects of
existence (Wheelwright) - Are metaphorical narrative
- According to Greimas and Courtés there is
- A practical level of myths narratives about
actions of mythical agents - And a deep level of myths existential
questions regarding man and cosmos - Origin of humanity and cosmos
- Myths are often cosmological
- Myths are often aetiological
15Myths drama, passion, (im)morality
- Myths have linear or circular narrative
structures - Are full of adventures, battles, struggles
pathos, emotion, drama - They could express moral elements, or indicate
immoral behaviours - Myths are morally ambiguous a hero or a god
could be sometimes moral and other times
absolutely immoral - Myths arent politically correct
16Multiple meanings
- myth is a sacred story involving symbols that are
usually capable of multiple meanings (cf. the
works of Claude Levi-Strauss, Ernst Cassirer,
Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, and
Northrup Frye)
17Myths according to the philosophers of
Enghlitenment and the positivists
- Myth opposed to logos (rational discourse)
- Myth were synonym of false and irrational, old,
unfashionable, simple - The philosophes such as Voltaire, were interested
in dispelling myths, not explaining their
existence or their complexity
18Myths according to modern scholars
- According to Levi-Strauss, Cassirer, Freud, Jung,
Frye, Cassirer - Myths are a constant dimension of human mind
arent relic of the past
19Franz Boas
- Nothing travels so fast as the fantastic tales
- Large diffusions of certain myths
20Uno Harvas regional phenomenology
- Phenomena or themes (myths regarding stars,
forest, spirits of the houses) present in myths
of different peoples are compared to each others
in order to find similarities and differences - Harvas phenomenology was called regional,
because the comparison was limited to certain
peoples sharing some similar cultural patterns
(Finno-Ugrians) - Unlimited or Global Phenomenology of Mircea
Eliade
21Functionalist (Malinovski) vs Structuralist
- Functionalits
- Myths and Rituals are based on socio-biological
functions - Shadows of Marx
- Dumezil triads (kings, soldiers, productors)
- Structuralists and symbolists
- Independence of the mythical thought, inner logic
- The myth are thinking in us
- The myths and rituals could be unpractical or not
necessarily oriented to the satisfaction of a
need - aesthetical level
22Levi-strauss
- Myths based on a inner narrative code similar to
language - Myths are a forest of symbols
- Myths like symbolic symphonies
- Binary oppositions
- Units of analysis mythems
- Myths are systems with an inner logic (the savage
mind) - Critics the Levi-Strauss interpretations are
sometimes too schematic, the myths seems
frozen - Levi-Strauss dont express the dynamicity and
variability of myths, he is interested mostly in
the narrative patterns
23First Juri Lotman interest on oral narratives
- History is oriented to the effect of an action
- Myths are oriented to the origins
- Written culture oriented to the past
(registration) - Oral culture to the future (prediction,
prophecy) - The word of oral memory is full of symbols
- Previous tendency (with Uspenskij) to consider
Russian folklore (folk tale) as myths - Individualism and absence of connections between
the wonder tales (no system) - Decoding the mythological texts is an act
reconstruction of a puzzle
24Juri Lotmans theoric framework the vertical
level of myths and symbols
- The long memory of symbols and of myths has a
vertical level - The mythological symbol dont live only in a
cultural synchronic level (only in the present or
only in the past). - The symbol has a vertical, historical,
chronological level - It comes from the past, it is active in the
present and is projected into the future - Every mythological and cultural text isnt
homogeneous, it is made bay several layers - Every mythological symbol is a messenger of
other cultural eras - At the same time the symbol is dynamic, and it
has an active relation with the present cultural
context it is transformed by the present
cultural contexts and could transform some
aspects of the present cultural context
25Lotman and Bachtin dialogical symbolism
- Myths and culture are created in a dialogic
context - I-he/she
- I-I
- We-they
- The others are necessary to define ourselves and
our symbols
26Ronald Barthes dangerous damned modern myths
- Modern Myths are icons admired without
discussion or popular -nationalistic stories
that are considered to be true without any proof
of evidence - Modern myths are like a stolen language
- Who manipulates myths use particular statements
as universal truth - Myths part of the Doxa (common sense)
- Modern myths has hidden ideological meanings
- Myths are not only narratives, but phenomena of
everyday life - Ethnographic semiotic on the road advertising,
films, business life, daily food - Divas of the cinemas, the myth of Senna
Gardel as an icon of tango
27Art
- Generally art is a (product of) human activity,
made with the intention of stimulating the human
senses as well as the human mind by transmitting
emotions and/or ideas - Arts are connected to decodification and
rebuilding of myths - Traditionally the term art was used to refer to
any skill or mastery - Greek and Romans considered most artist artisans
- Only few (Parmenide) were famous and inspired by
gods - The myth of the artist-genius explodes in
Renaissance - Every art and culture develop his own aesthetic
and goal