Note all are quotations -- bibliographical information can be found at the end of each quote.
They are presented in alphabetical order
~
BRUNVAND ~ On the universality of myth as a world-forming, value-shaping
media
As
the folklorist Dell Hymes wrote, after years of studying Northwestern Indian
myths and their counterparts elsewhere, “The shaping of deeply felt values
into meaningful, apposite form, is present in all communities, and will find
some means of expressions among all.” In other words, with regard to
contemplating their relationship to a larger reality and expressing their
beliefs in narrative “mythical” form, the world’s people, however advanced
their cultures, are all “folk.”
Another
aspect of modern folk thought that resembles mythmaking is what might be called
“mythic traditions” in American history. Archetypal images found in our
culture, such as the country bumpkin (Brother Jonathan in colonial times), the
city slicker (for example, in “The Arkansas Traveler”), and our national
symbols (like Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty, and even the flag) have become
metaphors for concepts about our past. The same is true for the “myths”
surrounding events, like the fall of the Alamo, Custer’s Last Stand, and the
assassinations of presidents. Also mythic in this sense are the stereotyped
plots of romance and legend—“from rags to riches” or “virtue is
rewarded.” To a large extent, myth- and image-making of this kind underlie our
sense of national identity, and even influence our social and political
decisions.
***
Hero
Patterns and History of Scholarship on the Hero
In
story after story, whether myth or tale, heroes are set difficult tasks to
perform—they slay monsters, and they receive royal gifts as rewards; humans
sometimes marry animals that often turn out themselves to be transformed humans;
food or other necessities are magically provided; and characters go on long
voyages and sometimes return unrecognized. Basically, only two explanations are
possible for such parallels: they may be the result of polygenesis, the
independent invention of the same materials in different place, or of diffusion,
the single invention at one place of an item that was then transmitted to other
regions.
{Summary
of scholarship (paraphrased)}
Jacob
and Wilhelm Grimm (19th c) folktales = “broken-down myths” from
prehistoric Indo-European tribes disseminated during migrations in Europe.
Max
Müller (19th c), philologist studied languages to conclude all
principal gods’ names originally stood for solar phenomena = “solar
mythology” saw myths as accounts of day and night (all other tales descended
from these and carried same symbolism). Many followers or offshoots (lunar,
zoological explanations) compared texts around world; some traced all myths back
to India; often over-simplified or read into myths. Idea that myths decay over
time – from idealized “mythopoeic period”
English
Anthropological School (19th c) of comparative mythologists (vs.
previous group) founded on idea of cultural evolution (E.B. Tylor, Andrew Lang,
James Frazer) from stages of primitive à
civilized. Earlier stages might leave “survivals” from previous
(=superstitions, customs, tales, etc.). Assumes 19th c England to be
apex of civilized potential of man (biased)
Psychoanalytic
approach to myths - German scholars (19th c). Esp Sigmund Freud, Otto
Rank, Carl Jung. Assumed polygenesis explained widespread myth parallels. Freud
drew on dreams, neuroses, and complexes to unravel the workings of the
unconscious or subconscious mind and their Oedipal, phallic, and other
symbolism. Jung created “collective unconscious” to account for generalized
cultural patterns or “archetypes.”
Euhermerism
(4th c bc) believed myths are actually based on historical traditions
and that mythic heroes = real people (humanity made god(s) in own image). New
euhermerism (early 20th c) H.M. & N.K. Chadwick set forth
heroic-age theory & asserts mythical heroes (Beowulf, Siegfried, Roland,
Cuchulain) based on actual chieftains of prehistory passed down as legends.
Dorson applied this theory to Davy Crockett.
Opposite
assumption (basis of myth is never history) à
Myth-ritual theory (Lord Raglan, Rank, Hyman) schematized large # heroes’
journeys to show they can’t preserve history. Believes religious ritual is
source of all myths, and myths precede all genuine folklore.
Most
of these theories have been seriously questioned / disproved though all have
some remaining influence. (Jan Harold Brunvand, The Study of American
Folklore, 1998/1968, 186-191)
~
DORSON ~ On the typical
heroes in early American history
~
The young republic chose for its folk heroes, not a general, a president, a
justice, a poet, an explorer, but a backwoods hunter [Davy Crocket], a Western
boatman (Mike Fink], a hillside farmer [Sam Patch], a cotton spinner [Mose the
Bowery b’hoy], and a volunteer fireman [Yankee Jonathan] . . .. [Even though
most are not remembered today, these] humorists, buffoons, and clowns also
inspired admiration and awe at their daredevilry and cocksureness . . .. All
breathed the spirit of American destiny, in the name of demos . . ..
These characters received a good deal of criticism, scorn, and ridicule in their
day as ruffians, fools, and windy show-offs . . .. [Yet] each embodied a generic
class that had evolved in the young republic . . . hitherto unrecognized
American types, anonymous democrats who had developed their own peculiar ways
and talk.”. [Dorson later characterizes these heroes as 19th
century “ringtailed roarers.” He also discusses John Henry, Casey Jones, and
Johnny Appleseed as representative “noble toiler” American heroes and Jesse
James, Billy the Kid, and Sam Bass as “outlaw” American heroes –
“American Robin Hoods,” as well as storytelling heroes or “münchausens”
and “20th century comic demigods” like Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill,
etc.] (Richard M. Dorson, America
in Legend, 60-63, & Richard M. Dorson American Folklore, 1959,
199-243)
~
EDWARDS ~ on The Hero and the HEROINE: Myth and Women
All
heroism, in fact, appeals to love, makes love its end, relies on faith where
knowledge is impossible. Even The Iliad, memorialized by Simone Weil as a
“poem of force,” concludes not with the spectacle of Hector’s bloody body
being dragged around the fallen city but with Achilles and Priam joined in
prayer, reconciled, if only for a moment. Love, in this sense, is neither
romantic nor sexual. A social rather than a private impulse, it seeks expression
in a public form and brings about a change from an old idea of community to a
new ideal, on Victor Turner calls “communitas.” This term conveys a vision
of community in its spiritual rather than its administrative or geographic
sense. Communitas is “spontaneous, immediate, concrete . . . as opposed to the
norm-governed, institutionalized abstract nature of social structure” (Ritual
Process, p. 114). The participants in this relationship confront one another
directly and create a “model of society as homogeneous and unstructured”
(119) . . .. It is this connection between love and power, so often glossed over
in narratives and interpretations of male heroism, that is the central structure
of [many women-centered myths] . . .. Heroines typically have sons, hostages to
patriarchy, signs that their marriages have been retreats and that they have
been incorporated again into an unchanged world. But Pleasure—sensuous,
unmanly, feminine—is love’s product, a vital expression of communitas. Where
instinct and intellect are fused, Please is born. In a culture that sees love as
expressive primarily of sexuality alone and as contained only in relationships
that reinforce social and economic hierarchies, the need to liberate eros from
this hidden bondage can best be perceived and represented by figures who are
truly marginal to society, as women have been rendered marginal in patriarchal
culture. Nonetheless, this quest is the prototype of all heroic action. (Lee R.
Edwards, Psyche As Hero, 1984, 13-14)
~
KLUCKHOHN ~ On Comparing Heroes from Various Cultures
~Literary
scholars, psychiatrists, and behavioral scientists have, of course, long
recognized that diverse geographical areas and historical epochs have exhibited
striking parallels in the themes of myth and folklore. Father-seekers and
father-slayers appear again and again. Mother-murder appears in explicit and in
disguised form. Eliade has dealt with the myth of “the eternal return.”
Marie Bonaparte has presented evidence that wars give rise to fantasies of
patently similar content. Animal stories—at least in the Old World—show
likenesses in many details of plot and embellishment: African tales and Reynard
the Fox, the Aesop fables, the Panchatantra of India and the Jataka tales of
China and India. The Orpheus story has a sizable distribution in the New World.
In considering various parallels, some elementary cautions must perforce
be observed. First, levels of abstraction must be kept distinct. It is true, and
it is relevant, to say that creation myths are universals or near universals.
But this is a far more abstract statement than are generalizations about the
frequency of the creation of human beings by mother earth and father sky or by
an androgynous deity or from vegetables. Second, mere comparisons on the basis
of the presence or absence of a trait are tricky and may well be misleading.
Although there are cases where I have as yet no positive evidence for the
presence of the incest theme, there is no corpus of mythology that I have
searched carefully where this motif does not turn up. Even if, however, incest
could be demonstrated as a theme present in all mythologies, there would still
be an important difference between mythologies preoccupied with incest and those
where it occurs only incidentally and infrequently . . ..
Most anthropologists today would agree with Lévi-Stauss that throughout
the world myths resemble one another to an extraordinary degree; there is,
indeed, an “astounding similarity between myths collected in widely different
regions.” The differences are there too, of course, between cultures and
culture areas, even between versions of “the same” myth collected on the
same day from two or more individuals of a particular culture. Some myths appear
to have a very limited geographical distribution are varyingly styled, weighted,
and combined. These differences are very real and very massive, and there must
be no tacit attempt to explain them away. Fro some purposes of inquiry the focus
must be upon questions of emphasis, of inversion of plot, of selective omission
and addition, of reinterpretation, of every form of variation. The similarities,
however, are also genuine . . . presumably no two events in the universe are
literally identical. But there are formal resemblances at varying levels of
abstraction that are interesting and significant.
{Kluckhohn notes Spencer’s analysis of Navaho mythology reveals these
similarities with other world mythology}:
1.
These are
also hero stories: adventures and achievements of extraordinary kind (e.g.,
slaying monsters, overcoming death, controlling the weather.).
2.
There is
often something special about the birth of the hero (occasionally heroin).
3.
Help from
animals is a frequent motif.
4.
A separation
from one or both parents at an early age is involved.
5.
There is
antagonism and violence toward near kin, though mainly toward siblings or
father-in-law. This hostility may be channeled in one or both directions. It may
be masked but is more often expressed in violent acts.
6.
There is
eventual return and recognition with honor. The hero’s achievements are
realized by his immediate family and redound in some way to their benefit and
that of the larger group to which the family belongs.
Contrasts between the Old World and New World forms are clearly reflected
in content and emphasis. The themes of social hierarchy and of triumph over
(specifically) the father are absent in the American Indian version, and the
Navaho theme of anxiety over subsistence is absent from the Euro-Asian plot. Yet
at the broad psychological level the similarities are also impressive. In both
cases we have a form of “family romance”: the hero is separated but in the
end returns in a high status; prohibitions and portents and animals play a role;
there are two features of the Oedipus myth as Lévi-Strauss has “translated”
it—“underestimation and overestimation of near kin.”
Of constant tendencies in mythmaking, I shall merely remind you of four
that are so well documented as to be unarguable, then mention two others:
1.
Duplication,
triplication, and quadruplication of elements. (Lévi-Strauss) suggests that the
function of this repetition is to make the structure of the myth apparent.)
2.
Reinterpretation
of borrowed myths to fit pre-existing cultural emphases.
3.
Endless
variations upon central themes.
4.
Involution-elaboration.
The psychoanalysts have maintained that mythmaking exemplifies a large
number of the mechanisms of ego defense. I agree, and have provided examples
from Navaho culture. Lévi-Strauss suggests that mythical thought always works
from awareness of binary oppositions toward their progressive mediation. That
is, the contribution of mythology is that of providing a logical model capable
of overcoming contradictions in a people’s view of the world and what they
have deduced from their experience. This is an engaging idea, but much further
empirical work is required to test it. (Clyde Kluckhohn, “Recurrent Themes in
Myths and Mythmaking” in Dundes’ The Study of Folklore, 1965, orig.
pub. 1959, pp. 159-160, 167-168).
~
SAMUEL & THOMPSON ~ On The Vitality of Myth and Heroes in Today’s
World
~
Such figures [heroes] transcend the conventional categories of the historian.
There is no body of records where they can be systematically studied, no
statistics against which they can be measured, no prior reality to which they
can be conferred . . .. Ideologically they are chameleon, being appropriated now
by the Right, now by the Left, and also often by folk radicalism – the
politics of the unpolitical. . . . Yet
myth is a fundamental component of human thought. One has only to consider the
magical feelings attaching to authority, or the glamour attributed to
celebrities, or the power of divided historical origins and cultural traditions
to set modern communities – in Ireland or Israel, Sri Lanka or the Lebanon –
tearing themselves apart, to see that myth has lost neither its imaginative
purchase nor its living power as a historical force today. (Ralph Samuel &
Paul Thompson, The Myths We Live By, 1990, 3-5)
~
ZIPES ~ On the connection between myth and fairy tale and their
persistence and function today
~ Over the
centuries we have transformed the ancient myths and folk tales and made them
into the fabric of our lives. Consciously and unconsciously we weave the
narratives of myth and folk tale into our daily existence. During one period in
our history, the Enlightenment, it seemed that we people of reason were about to
disenchant the world and get rid of all the old myths and religions that
enfeebled our minds so that we could see clearly and act rationally to create a
world of equality and liberty. But, as Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer noted
in their most significant contribution to critical theory, Dialectic of
Enlightenment, we simply replaced archaic myths with a new myth of our own based
on the conviction that our own civilized reason had the true power to improve
the living and working conditions of all human beings; it was not the power of
the gods that would help humankind. It was the rising bourgeoisie that spoke out
in the name of all human beings while really speaking its own interests, and
these interests are the myths that pervade our lives today . . ..
The fairy tale is myth. That is, the classical fairy tale had undergone a
process of mythicization. Any fairy tale in our society, if it seeks to become
natural and eternal, must become myth. Only innovative fairy tales are
antimythical . . .. Since the
conditions of life change so rapidly, we need to hold on to what we know and
like quickly before it vanishes. So we copy. We duplicate. We live in an age of
mechanical reproduction where there are more copies of original art works than
there are originals. We copy others in the way we dress, buy, and desire. We
desire through the constant repetition of commercials that we copy whenever we
shape ourselves and consume. To copy somebody else or something is to become a
look-alike and make a coded statement.
To
copy a fairy tale is to duplicate its message and images, to produce a
look-alike. To duplicate a classical fairy tale is to reproduce a set
pattern of ideas and images that reinforce a traditional way of seeing,
believing, and behaving. It does not take much imagination or skill to duplicate
a classical fairy tale. Nor is it expensive for publishers to print duplicates .
. .. The consumers/viewers want comfort and pleasure: they are not threatened,
challenged, excited, or shocked by the duplications. A traditional and socially
conservative worldview is confirmed.
Revisions
of classical fairy tales are different . . .. Fairy tales were first told
by gifted tellers and were based on rituals intended to endow meaning to the
daily lives of members of a tribe. As oral folk tales, they were intended
to explain natural occurrences such as the change of the seasons and shifts in
the weather or to celebrate the rites of harvesting, hunting, marriage, and
conquest. The emphasis in most folk tales was on communal harmony . . .. The
tale came directly from common experiences and beliefs. Told in person,
directly, fact to face, they were altered as the beliefs and behaviors of the
members of a particular group changed. [The printing press changed this pattern
dramatically.] . . . This establishment through the violation of the oral
practices was the great revolution and transformation of the fairy tale, and led
to mythicization of key classical fairy tales. It is the fairy tale as myth that
has extraordinary power in our daily lives, and its guises are manifold, its
transformations astonishing. We often forget or are unaware of how “mythic”
and “changeable” fairy tales are. . . .
In
the fairy-tale books there is hope for a world distinctly more exciting and
rewarding than the everyday world in the here and now . . .. But is there any
basis for such hope? . . . What socio-cultural function do fairy tales have in
an American society, in which the most extreme fantasies and nightmares
have been coolly and brutally realized so that little is left for the
imagination?
The
quandary of the fairy tale was most evident during the Reagan/Bush years of the
1980’s which brought a destruction of social welfare services and projects,
increased pauperization of women and minority groups, and support for the
individual self-absorption of the middle classes, often equated with the
so-called Yuppies. It would appear that the fairy tale in the 1980’s became
nothing more than a decorative ornament, designed to titillate and distract
readers and viewers, no matter how it was transformed as novel, poem, short
story, Broadway play, film, cassette, or TV series. . . .
Clearly,
one cannot speak about the fairy tale in America today, or even the
American fairy tale. The most crucial question, however, for the genre as a
whole, including all the different media types, is whether it can truly
recapture its credible utopian function. And, of course, the answer to this
question depends on whether we can realistically conceive of utopias in a world
where chaos, poverty, war, and exploitation take precedence over our dreams, and
when there is a danger that we will now conceive of false utopias after the
momentous changes that have occurred . . .. [in our world today where it is]
apparent that the American concept of the “free world” cannot be easily
exported, and peace and harmony cannot be easily attained. [Yet these problems]
compel us to rethink the meaning of utopia and freedom in reality and in the
realm of the fairy tale as well. . . . (Jack
Zipes, Fairy Tale as Myth: Myth as Fairy Tale, 1994, 1-16 & 139-161).
~
ZUMWALT on the Myth-Ritual Debate
The
Myth-Ritual Debate gained steam in the 1960’s (especially important in
literature departments). Joseph Fontenrose, 1971, says all agree, “myths are
derived from rituals and that they were in origin the spoken part of a ritual
performance.” The myth-ritual theory was given impetus in 1912 by the
publication of Jane Harrison’s Themis. She presented myth as the legomena
or the spoken part of dromena, the rites. The true myth for Harrison was
the sequence of words which accompanied the rites.
History
of those who study the HERO PATTERN:
[For
The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama 1936] Lord Raglan studied
the lives of Robin Hood, the heroes of the Norse Sagas, King Arthur, Cuchulainn,
and the Greek heroes. He found that the accounts of the heroes’ lives
conformed to a pattern composed of twenty-two features . . . that he suggests
emerge from rituals associated with the rites of passage, specifically those
concerned with birth, accession to the throne, and death . . .. Von Hahn [in his
work of 1876] used the biographies of fourteen heroes and arrived at sixteen
incidents. In 1909, Otto Rank, after a study of fifteen biographies, published The
Myth of the Birth of the Hero . . .. Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the
Folktale, which appeared in 1928 in Russian, was also part of the pattern
approach to the study of narrative.
Joseph
Campbell, author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949) was certainly
the most popular of those who studied pattern. Campbell divides the hero’s
adventures into the formula of separation, initiation, and return. He truncates
the heroes’ biographies, never examining the life of one person in its
entirety. His major conclusion, in keeping with the tenor of the myth-ritual
school, denies historicity to the heroes of tradition. As Dundes notes, Campbell
was, like Raglan, unaware of the body of scholarship. While he included one
footnote on Otto Rank, he did not make any reference to von Hahn, Propp, or
Raglan.
{Many
of these theorists have been far removed from experience or direct knowledge of
the cultures whose stories they use to prove their theories} (Rosemary Levy
Zumwalt, American Folklore Scholarship, 1988, 124-129)