Chapter Twenty-FourLecture Two

Theories of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Romantic Theories

Romantic Theories

• Friedrich Creuzer– Symbolism and Mythology of the Ancient

Peoples, Especially the Greeks

• Johann Bachofen– Das Mutterrecht– Friedrich Engles, The Origin of the Family,

Private Property, and the State– Vladimir Propp

Anthropological Theories

Anthropological Theories

• Edward Tylor– Primitive Culture– Andrew Lang, Myth, Literature, and Religion

• James Frazer– The Golden Bough– Ritual theory of myth

Anthropological Theories

• Bronislaw Malinowski– Magic, Science and Religion– Charter theory of myth– Functionalism

Linguistic Theories

• Max Müller– Solar mythology– Disease of language

• William Jones– Indo-European – Indo-European comparative mythology

• George Dumézil– Functions in IE society

Psychological Theories

Psychological Theories

• Sigmund Freud– Condensation– Displacement– Oedipus Complex– The Interpretation of Dreams

• Carl Jung– Collective unconscious– Archetypes

Psychological Theories

• Erich Neumann– Dragon combat– Great Mother

Structuralist Theories

Structuralist Theories

• Claude Lévi-Strauss– Reconciliation of opposites

• Paris school of myth criticism– “Syntax” of the interrelations of myths– E.g. Hestia and Hermes

Contextual Approaches

Contextual Approaches

• Walter Burkert– Structure and History in Greek Mythology and

Ritual– Programs of action

• Feminist criticism– Some myths explain and reinforce women’s

social roles

Conclusion

Conclusion

• Humans create an alternate world through myth

• Grand theorizers – Must disregard what doesn’t square with or

doesn’t seem important to the theory– Myth, particularly classical myth, is too varied

to be understood by one approach

End