Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the veracity of a myth is not a defining criterion.[1]
Myths are often endorsed by secular and religious authorities and are closely linked to religion or spirituality.[2] Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past.[2][3][4][5] In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form.[2][6][7][8] Origin myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified.[2][7] National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals.
Koi Koi The Myth Download
Download š„ https://shoxet.com/2yGB29 š„
The word "myth" comes from Ancient GreekĀ (mthos),[9] meaning 'speech, narrative, fiction, myth, plot'. In turn, Ancient GreekĀ (mythologa, 'story', 'lore', 'legends', or 'the telling of stories') combines the word mthos with the suffix -tag_hash_108 (-logia, 'study') in order to mean 'romance, fiction, story-telling.'[10] Accordingly, Plato used mythologa as a general term for 'fiction' or 'story-telling' of any kind. In Anglicised form, this Greek word began to be used in English (and was likewise adapted into other European languages) in the early 19th century, in a much narrower sense, as a scholarly term for "[a] traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events."[11][12]
From Lydgate until the 17th or 18th century, "mythology" meant a moral, fable, allegory or a parable, or collection of traditional stories,[14][19] understood to be false. It came eventually to be applied to similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world.[14] Thus "mythology" entered the English language before "myth". Johnson's Dictionary, for example, has an entry for mythology, but not for myth.[22] Indeed, the Greek loanword mythos[24] (pl. mythoi) and Latinate mythus[26] (pl. mythi) both appeared in English before the first example of "myth" in 1830.[29]
The main characters in myths are usually non-humans, such as gods, demigods, and other supernatural figures.[30][3][31][32] Others include humans, animals, or combinations in their classification of myth.[33] Stories of everyday humans, although often of leaders of some type, are usually contained in legends, as opposed to myths.[30][32] Myths are sometimes distinguished from legends in that myths deal with gods, usually have no historical basis, and are set in a world of the remote past, very different from that of the present.[32][34]
Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society's religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behavior to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.[35]
Though myth and other folklore genres may overlap, myth is often thought to differ from genres such as legend and folktale in that neither are considered to be sacred narratives.[46][47] Some kinds of folktales, such as fairy stories, are not considered true by anyone, and may be seen as distinct from myths for this reason.[48][49][50] Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods or supernatural humans,[2][3][31] while legends generally feature humans as their main characters.[2][51] Many exceptions and combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid.[52][53] Moreover, as stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, their divine characters recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants, elves and faeries.[3][54][55] Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table)[56] and the Matter of France, seem distantly to originate in historical events of the 5th and 8th centuries, respectively, and became mythologised over the following centuries.
In colloquial use, "myth" can also be used of a collectively held belief that has no basis in fact, or any false story.[11] This usage, which is often pejorative,[57] arose from labelling the religious myths and beliefs of other cultures as incorrect, but it has spread to cover non-religious beliefs as well.[58]
Since "myth" is popularly used to describe stories that are not objectively true, the identification of a narrative as a myth can be highly controversial. Many religious adherents believe that the narratives told in their respective religious traditions are historical without question, and so object to their identification as myths while labelling traditional narratives from other religions as such. Hence, some scholars may label all religious narratives as "myths" for practical reasons, such as to avoid depreciating any one tradition because cultures interpret each other differently relative to one another.[61] Other scholars may abstain from using the term "myth" altogether for purposes of avoiding placing pejorative overtones on sacred narratives.[35]
In present use, "mythology" usually refers to the collection of myths of a group of people.[62] For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, Celtic mythology and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures.[63]
Other prominent mythographies include the thirteenth-century Prose Edda attributed to the Icelander Snorri Sturluson, which is the main surviving survey of Norse Mythology from the Middle Ages.
Myth criticism is a system of anthropological interpretation of culture created by French philosopher Gilbert Durand. Scholars have used myth criticism to explain the mythical roots of contemporary fiction, which means that modern myth criticism needs to be interdisciplinary.
Professor Losada offers his own methodologic, hermeneutic and epistemological approach to myth. While assuming mythopoetical perspectives, Losada's Cultural Myth Criticism takes a step further, incorporating the study of the transcendent dimension (its function, its disappearance) to evaluate the role of myth as a mirror of contemporary culture.
Cultural myth criticism, without abandoning the analysis of the symbolic, invades all cultural manifestations and delves into the difficulties in understanding myth today. This cultural myth criticism studies mythical manifestations in fields as wide as literature, film and television, theater, sculpture, painting, video games, music, dancing, the Internet and other artistic fields.
Myth criticism, a discipline that studies myths (mythology contains them, like a pantheon its statues), is by nature interdisciplinary: it combines the contributions of literary theory, the history of literature, the fine arts and the new ways of dissemination in the age of communication. Likewise, it undertakes its object of study from its interrelation with other human and social sciences, in particular sociology, anthropology and economics. The need for an approach, for a methodology that allows us to understand the complexity of the myth and its manifestations in contemporary times, is justified.[68]
Because "myth" is sometimes used in a pejorative sense, some scholars have opted for "mythos" instead.[63] "Mythos" now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a body of interconnected myths or stories, especially those belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.[12] It is sometimes used specifically for modern, fictional mythologies, such as the world building of H. P. Lovecraft.
Mythopoeia (mytho- + -poeia, 'I make myth') was termed by J. R. R. Tolkien, amongst others, to refer to the "conscious generation" of mythology.[69][70] It was notoriously also suggested, separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.
Comparative mythology is a 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 separate mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This source may inspire myths or provide a common "protomythology" that diverged into the mythologies of each culture.[71]
A number of commentators have argued that myths function to form and shape society and social behaviour. Eliade argued that one of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior[72][73] and that myths may provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby coming closer to the divine.[4][73][74]
Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society reenacts a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age. For example, it might reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.[35] Similarly, Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present.[75] 152ee80cbc