AbiWord

The mythology (of the Greek μυθολογία, of μύθος myth and λόγος speech ) is the study of the Mythe S and their significances, more usually it indicates the whole of the mythical accounts related to a Civilization, a Religion or a particular topic.

Mythology takes direction and activity in a culture socio-nun. The word is generally used to describe the religious systems of the old world S or the Civilization S first, moved away in space or time. Thus Li Me Hâ Ong could say: “One usually names mythology the crowned accounts of the religions in which nobody any more believes more”. Indeed, just like the exotic religions, many ancient and ancestral religions are known majority of people only through the mythical accounts which they left.

Mythology of the old world S or first

One speaks easily about mythology for the accounts Religieux of the world S old or exotic, distant in the Temps or the space, such as:

Contemporary mythology

It is more difficult to speak about mythology in connection with the contemporary religions, for example of biblical Mythologie, term that the Believing S all are laid out to take for an offense towards their Foi, an attack against their Croyance S or at least, a demonstration of Intolérance. The gods of the ways monotheists are thought as being only and single the God, and so like the only possible authority of this concept. The believer monotheist is thus easily brought to think that its god is truth when that of the others, especially that which does not have any more one faithful alive to defend it, would be false. These religions are declared unilaterally pagan (cf Paganisme). It thus poses the problem of the Vérité and not the problem of mythology.

However, the majority of the crowned books of the contemporary religions, that they raise of the Monothéisme or the Polythéisme, are enracinent in the religions first and the accounts which support them constitute mythologies. The myth is the normal language of the religion and it is not simple a Fable or simple a Légende, either that a popular tale.

The critical thought and particularly the Démythologisation, such as Rudolph Bultmann at the beginning of the 20th century heard it, accustomed us to think that the events and the stories surrounding the origin and the development of religions like the Christianisme, the Judaïsme or the Islamisme are not exactly true and verifiable as well as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln or the crowning of Napoleon i.

Formation of the myths

Robert Graves, which was deeply influenced by the Mythographie of James George Frazer the Branch of gold , considers that the myths are created by the many cultural needs.

The myths legitimate the cultural bases of a tribe, a city or a nation by connecting them to universal truths. For example, the myths justify the occupation of a territory by particular people.

All the cultures developed their own myths being composed of the accounts of their history, their religions, and their heroes. The great importance of the significance symbolic system of these accounts in the culture explains why they survive so a long time, sometimes of the thousands of years. François-Bernard Mâche distinguishes the myth , seen like a paramount psychic image, with the mythology , i.e. a system of words trying with a variable success to ensure a certain coherence between these images.

Joseph Campbell is one of the recent authors to write about the myths and of the history of the Spiritualité. Its book the hero with the thousand faces appeared in 1948 describes the fundamental ideas which it continued to work out until his death in 1987.

Other concepts

The myths are not identical to the Fable S, Légende S, Folklore S, Conte S, Anecdote S or Fiction S but the concepts can be superimposed. For example during the time of the Romanticism, the fairy tales and the folk accounts were perceived like eroded fragments of an old mythology (in particular by the brothers Grimm and Elias Lönnrot).

The mythological topics are often consciously used in the Littérature, to start with Homère. Resulting work can expressly refer to a mythological origin without in becoming a part (for example Cupid and Psyché). With the Moyen-âge the Courtly romance particularly uses this process of transformation of the myth into literature.

The evhemerism refers to the process of rationalization myths, putting topics formerly impregnated with mythological qualities in pragmatic contexts, for example while following a change of Paradigme cultural or religious (in particular the reinterpretation of pagan mythology according to the rise of Christendom). Reciprocally, the historical and literary documents can acquire mythological qualities with time, for example the Matière of Brittany and the Matière of France which are based respectively over historical events of 5th and 8th century, initially was of the epic poetry before becoming partially of the myths in the following centuries. The “generation conscious” of mythology was named Mythopoeia by J.R.R. Tolkien like by the ideologist Nazi Alfred Rosenberg.

Modern mythology

Films and books like the Star Wars and Tarzan can have strong mythological aspects which develop sometimes in major and complex philosophical systems. These stories, although not being mythology, contain mythical topics which satisfy the similar psychological needs for certain people. An example of a fictitious mythological system is that developed by J.R.R. Tolkien in Silmarillion and the lord of the rings . Moreover, of the fans employ sometimes the term of mythology to refer in a fictitious world complexes like the series Star Trek .

However, the fiction does not reach the real statute of mythology as long as people do not believe that it really arrived. For example, some believe that the film of the author of fiction Clive Barker Candyman is based on a true story, and new stories grew around the myth. The same applies to films like the Project Blair Witch or other stories of the same type. Many produced contemporary myths acquired the statute of urban Légende.

The word is also employed commonly to refer to the contemporary system of value, seldom called in question, particularly when he is seen like ideological or socially built (for example, " the mythology of the amour"). In the Years 1950, the structuralist thinker French Roland Barthes published a series of analyzes Sémiotique such myths modern and process of their creation, gathered in his book Mythologies .

Certain movements, in order to consolidate their old historical anchorings, had recourse to the Fakelore, for example the Wicca.

See too

Trans-cultural symbols

Certain symbols or concepts are found in several mythologies, are that they passed from one culture to the other, that is to say which they were independently invented.

Random links: