Mythography : the study of myths and rituals

601 Pages·2000·3.201 MB·English

by  Doty, William G

MYTHOGRAPHY
The Study of Myths and Rituals

MYTHOGRAPHY
The Study of Myths and Rituals
second edition
William G. Doty
the university of alabama press
Tuscaloosa and London
Copyright © 2000
The University of Alabama Press
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380
All rights reserved
First edition published 1986
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 . 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Cover illustration, Widening Gyre, and interior illustrations by Rachel Dobson.
Used by permission.
Cover and interior design by Charisse Antonopoulos
∞
The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Science–Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Doty, William G., 1939–
Mythography : the study of myths and rituals/William G. Doty.
—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8173-1005-3 (cloth)
ISBN 0-8173-1006-1 (pbk.)
1. Myth—Study and teaching. 2. Ritual—Study and teaching. 3. Myth
and ritual school. I. Title.
BL304.D58 2000
291.1′3—dc21
99-6781
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data available
CONTENTS
Preface: A ReadMe File for the User xi
Acknowledgments xix
PART 1 ACCESS TO TOOLS AND DEFINITIONS 1
chapter 1 Myth Around the Clock: From Mama Myth to
Mythographic Analysis 3
Myth the Mother 5
Positive and Negative Uses of “Myth” 12
The Myth- Terms of Our Analyses 16
Hermeneutics and Interpretation 22
The Range of De¤nitions 28
chapter 2 The Nature of the Mythical Beast: A Comprehensive,
Polyphasic Working De¤nition (Part 1) 31
(1)Network of Myths 34
(2)Culturally Important 37
(3)Imaginal 39
(4)Stories 42
(5)Metaphoric and Symbolic Diction 49
(6)Graphic Imagery 53
(7)Emotional Conviction and Participation 55
(8)The Primal, Foundational Accounts 58
(9)The Real, Experienced World 61
(10)Humankind’s Roles and Relative Statuses 63
chapter 3 Maieutic, Creative Myth: Conveying Values and
Systems of Interpreting Reality (De¤nition, Part 2) 66
(11)Convey Political and Moral Values 68
(12)Systems of Interpretation 69
(13)Individual Experience within Universal Perspectives 71
(14)Intervention of Suprahuman Entities 74
(15)Aspects of the Natural and Cultural Orders 77
(16)Rituals, Ceremonials, and Dramas 78
(17)Secondary Elaborations 79
chapter 4 The “Noble White Man”: Why Myths Seem Déclassé
in Today’s Glitz Culture 88
Those Primitive Savages Lacked Scienti¤c Truth 89
Myths, Science, and Truth(s) 92
Phenomenologically Existential Mythicity 101
The Greeks Are Still Very Much With Us 104
Myth and/versus Biblical History 107
The Smart and the Proper: When Do We Do
What We Say We Do? 113
PART 2 MYTHOGRAPHY:
HISTORICAL SCHOOLS AND ISSUES 123
chapter 5 Comparativism and the Functional Contexts of
Myths and Rituals 125
Sociofunctionalism: Myth as “Cement” and as “Charter” 128
How Myths Serve Society 135
Levels of Operational Vitality 137
Functional Contexts of Myths and Rituals 140
Reducing Anxiety and Communicating: Two German
Functionalists 147
Polyfunctional and Polysemantic Meanings 150
vi
chapter 6 Myth on the Psychoanalytical Couch: Freud and Beyond 157
Sigmund’s Mythology 159
manifest contents versus latent contents 160
the primal horde, civilization, and religion 165
a mythological reading of freud 169
etiological bias 171
mythological interpretation 173
Post-Freudian Mythography 174
Psychosociology 184
Psychoanthropology 186
chapter 7 The Imaginal, Archetypal Turn: Jung, Hillman,
and Further Beyond 194
Jungian Archetypes and Ampli¤cations 196
Archetypal Myth 202
The Animated Mythological Terrain of James Hillman 211
Other Semi-/Hemi-/Neo-Jungian Myth Studies 217
Psychologically Affective Myths and Rituals 223
chapter 8 Mything Links: Mythlitcrit and Cultural Studies Analyses
(Marx Was a Smoothie) 228
The Literary Importance of The Golden Bough 230
Myth-and-Ritual Criticism 234
Mythicosymbolism and Monomythicism 238
Northrop Frye’s Myth 245
Mythic Figures in Literature 251
Mythicity and the Modern/Postmodern 254
Gould’s Intentions of Mythicity 256
Cultural Studies of Cultural Studies 259
chapter 9 The Enframing Prime-time Context Is All:
Structuralisms, Semiotics, and Cultural History 266
Structuralism and the Concepts of “Structure” 268
Protostructuralist Structuralists 272
Lévi-Strauss: The Myth and the Mythed 274
Sequential and Semiotic Structuralists 284
The New French Cultural History 291
Bonnefoy/Doniger’s Encyclopedia 297
Biogentic Structuralism 299
vii
PART 3 EMBODIMENTS, RITES, AND
CEREMONIALS 303
chapter 10 The Cosmological/Symbological Human/Social Body 305
Biofunctional, Biogenetic Approaches 307
Joseph Campbell’s Mythography 307
The Local and the Universal 309
Ethological Questions 313
The Cosmological Human Body 314
Biogenetic Colors 316
Mythologically Attuned Bodies 319
The Human Social Experience 322
bliss at the mother's breast 323
gender differentiation 324
the family and the clan 327
dualities, polarities, and their mediation 330
chapter 11 Yesterday’s World Wide Web? Ritual as Culture’s
Symbolic Nexus 335
The Historical Ritual-Dominant (Myth-and-Ritual) School 336
Emphasis upon the Priority of Ritual 345
Victor Turner’s Ritual Studies 348
the means of analysis 349
rituals reflect social structures 354
rituals influence social relationships 357
the trickster and the liminal / liminoid 360
turner updated 365
chapter 12 Sacri¤cial Scapegoating the Origin of Myth/Religion?
Ritualizations as Necessary Gestures toward Being Human 368
De¤nitions and Attitudes and Functions 370
Girard: Violence, the Sacred, and the Sacri¤cial Scapegoat 377
renÉ girard 378
the theory: a compressed version 379
tracing the theory's heritage and future 382
girard's 384
NATURAL BORN KILLERS
developing girardian mythographies 388
Contemporary Antiritualism and the Postmodern 390
viii
How Rituals Serve Society 398
Ludic Liminality 401
PART 4 MYTHIFIED EXISTENCE 405
chapter 13 Making Do in a Decentered Cosmos: Signs of Our
Myths and Tales 407
Social and Cultural Semiotics 409
Transformation and Transmission of Mythic Materials 420
Universalizing Fairy Tales and Myths 426
chapter 14 Don’t Myth (with) the Boat: Our Deconstructed,
Fictive-Mythic Universe 434
From Realism on Down 437
The Sacred as Fictive Mythicity 443
Mythographic Moralities 453
FURBISHING THE CREATIVE
MYTHOGRAPHER’S TOOLKIT
i Glossary 461
ii Questions to Address to Mythic Texts 466
iii The New Mythical Iconography 468
iv Myth on the Internet 473
v Selected Introductory Bibliography: Access to Individual
Mythological Figures and Topics 476
1General Introductions to the Study of Mythology 476
2The Historical Development of Mythographic Perspectives 477
3Collections of Myths 478
4On De¤ning Myth and Ritual 478
5Sociofunctionalism; Comparativism 479
6Ritual Studies Materials 479
ix