Comparative Myth Test 1 Theories

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Survivals Theory

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Explanation: Survivals Theory uses cultural evolution to posit that all people, no matter where they are, pass through the same stages of progress. They pass from savagery to barbarism to civilization. An example of “savage” people would be Neolithic Europeans and Australian “bushmen.” An example of barbarous people would be archaic Greeks and 19th century European peasants. An example of civilized people would be Classical Greeks and Educated Europeans. The importance of this theory for mythology is it views savage people as not having agency, therefore they are sort of like automated transmitters: they tell stories without changing or influencing them. Thus it is with them that true lore can be found and this is important because lore is on the brink of fading into oblivion.
Key scholars: Andrew Lang and Hans Neumann.
Example myth: The myth of Cronus. He found this myth troubling because of the “savage” elements and the fact that these things would have been told by the Classical Greeks. He got rid of this problem by saying that these parts were just left over remnants of the Greeks own period of Savagery.

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Nature Mythology

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Explanation: Mythological characters, actions, and events all derive from natural phenomenon. A nature myth describes phenomenon such as wind, storms, and the movement of heavenly bodies in anthropomorphic terms. Nature mythologists typically had their favorite phenomenon that myths were supposedly all about.
Key scholars: Gaster and Mulller were both proponents of this theory.
Example myth: Prometheus, since he steals fire for man and that is where fire is created from, would be an example of the natural phenomenon of fire.

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Solar Mythology

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Muller used Solar Mythology as a more specific Nature Mythology, where every myth is fundamentally about the sun. He believed that “primitive” people were overawed by the sun passing. He also believed that the “Aryan” language at this time was incapable of abstraction, and because of this phenomena was granted agency. But people at some point forgot what abstractions were supposed to stand for, and when this happened the “disease of language” set in, where these non-abstractions were turned into metaphor, and also was the cause of all mythology.

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Myth-ritual theory

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Explanation: Though the different myth-ritualists vary on the specifics of their theories, the point of agreement between them all is that myth and ritual are intimately connected. Primitive men in the distant past used myth and ritual to help their communities survive. Myths are either scripts for ritual or tales purporting the history of ritual. And myths either developed in tandem with or immediately after ritual.
Key scholars: Harrison, Hooke, Frazer, Raglan, and Gaster.
Example myth: The Osiris myth was initially a ritual “script” to ensure the fertility of the fields.

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Euhemerism

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Explanation: This is the view of mythology coming from history. The gods and myths are based on actual events.
Key scholars: Euhemerus himself, Herodotus, and Snorri Sturluson.
Example myth: an example of this would be the myth of Io and Europa. In these two myths, Zeus carries off both of these women at different times in order to have his way with them. Herodotus euhemerized this, saying that Io was stolen by the Phoenicians to take her to Egypt, and, in return, Europa was stolen by the Greeks, and brought her to Crete. He treated these as real events.

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Literary archaeology

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Explanation: many characters and events from books such as the Iliad and Odyssey may have traces of a real person or event in them. Since there are times when segments don’t fit, these are taken to be local history. Heroes represent what used to be entire tribes.
Key Scholars: Gilbert Murray is the proponent of this.
Example myth: the fight between Idomeneus and Phaestus was actually the conquest of Phaestus by Knossos. The two tribes or cities having this war became mythologized into individuals.

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Functionalism

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Explanation: attempts to answer the question of what myths do. It relies on the idea that there is no text without context. Myth is used for pragmatic purposes, and informs pretty much everything in the society. It roots all cultural and social institutions, and all religion and morals refer back to the myths. Often, the most important myth is the cosmogonic myth.
Key scholars: Durkheim, Boas, Malinowski, and Eliade.
Example myth: Cath Maige Tuired can be read as a cosmogonic myth.

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Syntagmatic Structuralism

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Explanation: An approach that looks for the structure beneath the myths. It is scientific rather than humanistic, and it looks for generalizable rules that can be tested and subject to analysis.
Key scholars: Vladimir Propp, Otto Rank, Lord Raglan,
Example myth: Lord Raglan comes up with a common sequence of incidents—such as one of the members of a family absents himself from home, an interdiction is addressed to the hoer, the interdiction is violated, etc.—in hero stories that totals 22 points. Different hero stories have a varying number of points. Oedipus, for example, fulfills 21 of the 22 points.