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Theories

What forces creat myths? A question which has been pondered by many scholars and is yet to truly have an answer. a number of theories exist with myths connected with various religious beliefs one would believe that their roots rest within the creation of such beliefs. However, others have thought otherwise.

Over 2000 years ago, a Greek scholar called Euhemerus suggested "that all myths are based on historical events," which have become exaggerated from their original facts. The problem with believing that myths are a reflection of history is that over the genrations they have become imbued with symbolic meaning, transformed, shifted in time or place, or even reversed. "A classical example of this process is the 'Trojan War', a topis firmly within the scope of Greek Mythology."

"Robert Graves said of Greek myth; 'true myth may be defined as the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime performed on public festivals and in many cases recorded pictorially." He may have agreed that myths are generated by many cultural needs and over time cultures develop their own myths to connect the individual with the group. Many myths from various cultures all have similar themes or archetypes.

Of cousre, other theories exist such as "primary as indicators of astronomical events" as put by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechnend, or theories of Joseph Campbell, Immanuel Velikovsky and others. There seems to be no true agreement of where myths come from, except that it is know that myths may have been used to connect individuals with the group, to connect the various cultures with their members.

criticism

Archetypal literary criticism is a type of critical theory that interprets a text by focusing on recurring myths and archetypes (from the Greek arche, or beginning, and typos, or imprint) in the narrative, symbols, images, and character types in a literary work. As a form of literary criticism, it dates back to 1934 when Maud Bodkin published Archetypal Patterns in Poetry. Archetypal literary criticism’s origins are rooted in two other academic disciplines, social anthropology and psychoanalysis; each contributed to the literary criticism in separate ways, with the latter being a sub-branch of the critical theory. Archetypal criticism was its most popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s, largely due to the work of Canadian literary critic Northrop Frye. Though archetypal literary criticism is no longer widely practised, nor have there been any major developments in the field, it still has a place in the tradition of literary studies.

Comparative Mythology

Comparative mythology is related to comparative religion. It is a field of study which is technically part of anthropology, but is more usually regarded as part of the subject of ancient history. One very well-known recent author in this field was Joseph Campbell. Campbell is considered to be the pioneer of modern comparative mythology beginning with his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which describes the grave similarities between hero myths in different cultures. Campbell's ideas were merged with Carl Jung's studies into the psychological phenomenon of the Archetype, defined by comparative mythologists as recurrent images that exist cross-culturally throughout time. Many of its discoveries elicit great curiosity, such as the god Poseidon having pre-dated the concept of the Olympians, originally having been a land-based god.