Mythology

I

Introduction

Mythology, body of myths of a particular culture, and also the study and interpretation of myth. Myth is a complex cultural phenomenon that can be approached from a number of viewpoints. In general, myth is a narrative that describes and portrays in symbolic language the origin of the basic elements and assumptions of a culture. Mythic narrative relates, for example, how the world began, how humans and animals were created, and how certain customs, gestures, or forms of human activities originated. Almost all cultures possess or at one time possessed and lived in terms of myths.

Myths differ from fairy tales in that they refer to a time that is different from ordinary time (see Folktales). The time sequence of myth is extraordinary—an “other” time—the time before the conventional world came into being. Because myths refer to an extraordinary time and place and to gods and other supernatural beings and processes, they have usually been seen as aspects of religion. Because of the all-encompassing nature of myth, however, it can illuminate many aspects of individual and cultural life.

II

Meaning and Interpretation

From the beginnings of Western culture, myth has presented a problem of meaning and interpretation, and a history of controversy has accumulated about both the value and the status of mythology.

A

Myth, History, and Reason

In the Greek heritage of the West, myth or mythos has always been in tension with reason or logos, which signified the rational and analytic mode of arriving at a true account of reality. The Greek philosophers Xenophanes, Plato, and Aristotle, for example, exalted reason and made trenchant criticisms of myth as a proper way of knowing reality.

In the Judaeo-Christian tradition the notion of history has been opposed to myth. Complicating this opposition was the concept that the God of the Hebrews and Christians, although existing outside ordinary time and space, was revealed to humanity within human history and society. Thus, God was revealed to Moses in the Egypt of the pharaohs.

The distinctions between reason and myth and between myth and history, although fundamental, were never quite absolute. Aristotle concluded that in some of the early Greek creation myths, logos and mythos overlapped. Plato used myths as allegory and also as literary devices in developing an argument. Mythos, logos, and history overlap in the prologue to the Gospel of John in the New Testament; there, Jesus, the Christ, is portrayed as the Logos, who came from eternity into historical time. Early Christian theologians, attempting to understand the Christian revelation, argued about the roles of myth and history in the biblical account.

B

Western Mythical Traditions

The debate over whether myth, reason, or history best expresses the meaning of the reality of the gods, humans, and nature has continued in Western culture as a legacy from its earliest traditions. Among these traditions were the myths of the Greeks. Adopted and assimilated by the Romans (see Roman mythology), they furnished literary, philosophical, and artistic inspiration to such later periods as the Renaissance and the Romantic era. The pagan tribes of Europe furnished another body of tradition. After these tribes became part of Christendom, elements of their mythologies persisted as the folkloric substratum of various European cultures.