Myth definition 1 and 2 clas 1p97 PDF

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what is a myth lect 1 lesson 2...

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What        

is a myth? Definition 1 and 2

A myth is something that is 'false' (versus a true statement) A myth is something that didn't happen (versus a historical event) A myth is something that is religious (versus something made for entertainment) A myth is something that happened long ago (versus something that happened in recorded time) A myth involves gods and supernatural forces (versus a strictly 'logical' accounting) A myth means something to a culture (versus a story created by an author) A myth has to have a narrative A myth has to be a oral story or written version of the oral tale (as opposed to something like a movie or a painting)

Definition by Categorization (Bascom) Whenever someone discloses something, one may ask: What is this supposed to hide? From what does it divert our gaze? What prejudice is it meant to evoke? And further: How far does the subtlety of this distortion extend? And where does he go astray by it? F. Nietzsche, Morgenrote, § 523

The first part of any inquiry is to figure out WHAT it is that we are studying (and that is why I had you participate in the elaborate exercise above) and to identify what our own assumptions and prejudices are about the subject. But make no mistake -- establishing a definition of something as broad as myth is VERY tricky and rather than a first step it is normally the last step that a scholar makes, only after they are SURE of their theory. Providing a definition is usually an effort to minimize complications and to subtly exclude difficult possibilities (after all, we don't have to study it if it doesn't meet our definition). In the case of myth though, it is slightly more complicated -- everyone already has a fairly clear idea of what myth is within their head (even if you haven't really articulated what that is) -- such that you could look at any particular thing and say 'yes, that is a myth' or 'no, that isn't a myth.' My task then by talking about definitions is to break through your assumptions, so you can be clear what I mean when I use the term myth. Of all of the possibilities I surveyed you on, you will perhaps be surprised to hear that ALL of the stories that we looked over have some potential claim to being myth (I will outline how in a moment soon). There is only one thing which I absolutely want to remove from your mind and that is the idea that a myth is something that is FALSE. That is certainly the most common modern usage of the term but it is not useful for this class.

The idea that Myth = False is something with an ancient history. The Greeks essentially had two words for 'story' -- "Mythos" and "Logos". For the Greeks, the major division between these types of stories was one of genre -- stories of Mythos (myth) were written as poetry but stories of Logos were written in prose. Eventually, as time went on, this division between genres evolved into something more like: mythos (myth) is the things that POETS talk about, logos is the thing that speechmakers and rhetoricians talk about -- ie. mythoi are stories that are UNVERIFIABLE but rely on the storyteller's skill, but logoi are arguments that attempt to persuade you based on your own experience. Eventually, largely due to the work of pioneering historians such as Thucydides, who set out to create a 'true' and 'accurate' history of the Greek War with Persia, the division between mythos and logos became essentially the modern one -- mythos (what the poets do) is just falsehood, but logos (what historians do) is truth. But if myth can be so many things, how are we to define it -- well, we will be looking at different attempts throughout the semester, but one of the most prevalent ways is called the 'empirical' or 'taxonomy' method. Essentially, this involves gathering together a bunch of stories and placing them in different categories (primarily the categories 'myth' and 'not a myth') based on a certain set of characteristics. A great example of this is the anthropologist William Bascom who, in is 1965 work "The Forms of Folklore" separated stories by these characteristics (starting by saying that they needed to be narratives written in prose [ie. modern 'story' form, couldn't be a poem or a song]. Then: Is the story thought to be true? Is the story set in the 'real' modern world? In order to be a myth, according to Bascom, it needed to be A PROSE NARRATIVE that was considered TRUE and it needed to NOT happen in the contemporary world. If the story was considered TRUE but it was set in the "real" world, then it was considered a LEGEND. It the story happened in the "real" world but was thought to be FALSE, he called it a FOLKTALE. Bascom's attempt was perhaps too narrow, but this has been significantly expanded by those who have followed his methodology, while still keeping the same broad division between 'MYTH', "FOLKLORE' and "LEGEND".  

One popular (and useful) attempt to define myth by the 'empirical' method uses the following categories:     

Did the society believe the story to be true? When does the story take place? Where does the story take place? Is the story connected to religious practice (ie. is it a sacred story) Who are the principal characters (are they human or nonhuman?)

This creates something like the following chart:

A chart like this is really useful because I suspect that it helps some of you understand why you would disqualify Little Red Riding Hood as a myth (calling it a Folktale, perhaps) or why you would disqualify the story of King Arthur as a myth (calling it a Legend, perhaps). Note too that it actually works contrary to the way most of you think about Myth -- rather than a story that is believed to be FALSE, as we often say of myths in the modern world, a myth for scholars is something that must be TRUE (or at least, believed to be true by the society that created it) in order to qualify. Truth in this sense is not necessarily the same thing as 'accuracy' or at least not, scientific accuracy but something more at the core of a culture. A belief might be deeply held and absolutely unquestioned even if it appears completely illogical from the outside.

But, despite its usefulness, this sort of method is somewhat flawed. Importantly, the problem with definitions like this is that they are often, implicitly claims about the VALUE of something. Example: Do you call a particular novel "literature" or "popular fiction"? Or likewise -- is there a difference between 'popular movies' and 'artistic cinema'? I am sure that if I asked, you would be able to come up with some divisions/categories which separate the two (probably something about 'artistic merit' or 'time that it has been out' or something). But, what seems like a small or scholarly distinction can be used to disqualify -- after all, "literature" or "art" is generally something that is worthy of study and 'popular fiction or movies are garbage (I don't actually hold this view!). So, when someone defines something as 'popular fiction' they are also saying 'not worthy of study' and this kind of definitional nonsense has been used particularly to disqualify writers (for instance to disqualify anyone who is not white/European/CIS/Male/etc). The division between Folklore/Myth/and Legend has often been used similarly to disqualify sets of stories from serious study -- this is particularly true regarding the stories of Indigenous cultures which are frequently called 'Folklore' instead of 'Myth." Since the category 'Folklore' has meant 'not worth studying' (again, I couldn't disagree more) this is a problem. The ancient's also understood the problems of categorization: There is an ancient story about Plato's school, which, like the later Greek philosophical schools, had a mania for defining things. Diogenes the Cynic attended one of the lectures at which Plato was applauded for defining "Man" as "an animal, biped and featherless." Diogenes left the room to return a little later, holding up a plucked chicken, announcing "Here is Plato's Man!" So Plato amended his definition, adding the words "having broad nails." If the first anecdote is a caution against saying too little, this is one against saying too much. Above all, one must beware of definitions that are mere compilations of empirical and often trivial distinctions (usually drawn, as in this case, to "pin down" a predetermined category concept). As with Plato's definition, every challenge and change in perspective will require further

supplements. If Diogenes brought in a prairie dog the definition would have been expanded with "and not excessively hairy." But what if such empirical research is wrong in assuming that the objects are simply out there waiting to be collected and studied? Then such discriminations are not only trivial, they are arbitrary. At the very least, since myth is a human product, some account must be given of the attitudes and needs of the creators as well as the attitudes and needs of the observer (Csapo, E. "Theories of Mythology" 2006 pg. 16) Ultimately then, this sort of categorization is really useful for understanding our own assumptions BUT any real understanding of myth needs to push further and consider the human element. Definition 2: Burkert's Definition of Myth For our second definition -- and the one we will be referring to most often throughout the class -- let’s turn to a scholar whom many consider the foremost expert on Greek myth and religion, Walter Burkert (1931-2015). Burkert defined myth as “a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance." (1) Notice how Burkert's definition encompasses much of the categorization done above but also now incorporates reference to the society (when he says "collective importance"). Let’s look at each part of this definition. Burkert calls myth “a traditional tale.” This refers to the oral nature of myth. Myths are transmitted from one generation to the next orally, both as stories told at the family level and performed at larger civic occasions such as festivals. Burkert goes on to say that a myth must have “secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance.” By this, he means that for a myth to continue to be told over many generations and hundreds of years, it must be more than simply an interesting story with unusual characters and strange events. Those are fine and in fact essential for keeping an audience interested at the moment of a story’s telling or performance, but a myth must have a deeper level. Parts of the story must provide insight into matters that all of its listeners will find important. In short, what differentiates a myth from simply a good anecdote or story is that the myth must also include issues that the collective, the society as a whole finds important. Without such an element, most stories, no matter how interesting they once were, eventually fade away, as they become increasingly irrelevant over time. In short, it’s the “partial, secondary reference to

something of collective importance” that ensures that a myth will continue to be told. (1) Walter Burkert, Structure and History of Greek Mythology and Ritual, University of California Press, 1979, p. 23. What are some of the advantages of this approach versus Bascom? Well, first and foremost, Burkert decouples myth from religion and this is a profound separation. You probably had in the back of your mind that myth needs to be a 'sacred' story or tied into a set of religious beliefs BUT this is a tricky thing for the Greeks. It is difficult to say whether or not, they would have even understood a difference between 'religious' and 'non-religious' -for the Greeks, EVERYTHING was religious, in a way that is really difficult for us to understand: Priesthoods were elected in the same way that democratic officials were, state decisions were undertaken after religious sacrifices in a venue that was a temple to a god, oaths and every day business invoked the gods, the daily calendar was tied to divine worship and on an on. In general the division between 'sacred' and 'profane' or 'religious activity' and 'secular activity' is an entirely modern distinction -- in part, created in the Renaissance as thinkers tried to distance what they were doing from the authority of the Catholic Church. So, by broadening a myth to simply be 'of collective importance' and making the tale 'traditional' rather than 'sacred', Burkert's definition avoids that issue. In addition, Bascom (above) claimed that all myths had to be prose narratives: something that is written down and only as prose, not poetry! This MIGHT have been your assumption too when we were going through the various possibilities -- maybe you thought that the statue of Hercules could not be a myth because it was not a written narrative. Or maybe you thought that the idea that we only use 10% of our brains couldn't be a myth because it was more a saying rather than a written story. Burkert nicely expands this to incorporate ORAL stories as well: stories that are passed from person to person without being written down. And indeed, this seems to have been the case in ancient Greece. (The following from R. Nickel 1p95 Lecture 1 2020)

Multiform Nature of Myth Because myth and religion are frequently closely connected, it’s necessary to understand some fundamental features of Greek religious belief. Firstly, the Greeks had no sacred texts, like those that exist in the Abrahamic religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Greeks had no equivalent of the Bible or the Qu’ ran, a text that offered a definitive version of the stories it contained and that was believed to be divinely authorized. Instead, th th as writing and literacy spread in the Greek world in the 6 and 5 centuries BCE (from about 575 to 400 BCE), myths were written down in a variety of literary genres, from epic poems to plays to philosophical dialogues, most of

which were meant to be performed by singers or actors before an audience, as discussed above. The absence of authoritative sacred texts means that Greek myths have frequently come down to us in a variety of different versions. By contrast, when one particular text, such as the Hebrew Bible, is believed to be divinely approved, other versions, such as local variants, of the stories it contains are usually lost over time, so that all that survives is the one officially authorized account of any particular story. Because no sacred texts existed in the Greek world, multiple versions of myths were able to survive. In short, the multi-form nature of Greek myth is attributable not only to the oral nature of myth and to the unique geography of the Greek world, but also to the absence of sacred texts. As we study different versions of the same myth, it will be important to keep in mind that we have unique cultural biases that the ancient Greeks did not share. We tend to privilege the written word over oral accounts in a way that the Greeks did not. Moreover, living as we do in a world in which the influence of the Abrahamic faiths with their sacred texts is still pervasive, we have a tendency to prefer one definitive, one “true” version of any story; the ancient Greeks, on the other hand, were comfortable with the idea of different versions of the same story. Let me illustrate with an example. In this course, we will study two very different versions of the myth of Prometheus, one by the poet Hesiod and another by the tragic playwright Aeschylus. In Hesiod’s version, Prometheus is a rather disreputable figure, a trickster and a thief whose actions cause enormous suffering for humans. Aeschylus, however, presents him as a highly ethical god whose actions save the human race from annihilation. Because texts like the Bible and Qur’an have created an often unconscious bias in us to want one definitive version of a myth, those who are new to the study of Greek myth will often ask, “Which is the correct version?” and assume that the oldest written version of a myth is the most accurate. Because Hesiod composed his version some 150 to 200 years before Aeschylus, we might be tempted to think his version is more authentic. These are our own cultural biases and we must put them aside, because the Greeks and Romans simply did not view myth this way. All versions of a myth are equally valid, in the Greco-Roman view, in that each version is an expression of the values and concerns of a particular city, region, or time period in which it originated. In short, the different versions of a myth, like that of Prometheus’ theft of fire, must be interpreted within a larger social and historical context. For an ancient Greek or Roman, to ask “which version is the correct one, the true one?” is simply the wrong question. Absence of a Priestly Class Similar to the absence of sacred texts, the Greeks also had no priestly class whose authority ensured the transmission from one generation to the next of “accurate” versions of sacred stories. Instead, the correct observance of rituals which we tend to associate with priests, rabbis, and imams was the

collective responsibility of everyone in Greek and Roman society. Many religious rituals were carried out in the home by family members; others were carried out at civic meetings and religious festivals, but always by members of the community. Together with the oral nature of myth, the geography of the Greek world, and the lack of sacred texts, the absence of a priestly class also contributes to the multi-form nature of Greek myth. With no sacred texts and no priestly class to assert the authority of those texts, different versions of the same myths were able to take root in different and often isolated communities. Most important takeaway: Greek myth is multi-form -- there is NO single version. Myth is instead, inherently flexible and changeable based on the storyteller, the context, and the environment. But even Burkert's definition has some issues that we will have to discuss as the course goes on... 1. Can a myth be something OTHER than an oral or written tale? This is particularly important because the same 'mythic' ideas appear in many places throughout Greece. For instance, the character of Herakles/Hercules shows up in the following places:       

Art (architecture, sculpture) Daily life (painted pottery, coins) Performance (epic, drama, choral song) Literature (history, philosophy) "Entertainment" and satire (dinner parties, festivals) Politics (rhetorical speeches) Religion (accompanying rituals) In some cases these are stories but in other cases, especially in their use on artifacts (like coins and statues and vases), they are not really 'narrative.'' Are we comfortable disqualifying ALL of these as myths? Or should our definition of myth be broadened away from tales? If we broaden this definition, then things the statue of Hercules might reasonably considered myths or, at least, carriers of mythic meaning. 

2. What does it mean for a particular author at a particular point to WRITE DOWN the myth? One thing that Burkert ignores -- or doesn't want to discuss -- is that the versions we have of these myths are NEVER oral. They were instead written down. Burkert suggests that when Homer or Hesiod or Herodotus sat down to write the myths of the Trojan War that they were simply reciting the oral myths that they had heard and putting them to paper. But, in truth, each of these authors (we are assuming for the moment that Homer is an author) wrote with a particular purpose and for a particular narrative end. And all of

these authors had no problem innovating or changing these myths to fit their narrative. Does that disqualify them from being myths? I suspect that, for many of you, this kind of distinction was what caused you to say that Harry Potter couldn't be a myth -- either denying it 'traditional' status OR because it was written for entertainment OR because it was created entirely by a single author. But if we disqualify Harry Potter because of the influence of the author... then we will also disqualify the vast majority of ancient myth as well....