Morford and Lenardon pp. 1-27.

INTRODUCTION
 
 
 
 

DEFINITIONS AND INTERPRETATIONS OF MYTH
 
 

The word myth comes from the Greek word mythos, which means "word," "speech," "tale," or "story," and that is essentially what a myth is: a story. Some would limit this broad definition by insisting that the story must have proven itself worthy of becoming traditional. A myth may be a story that is narrated orally, but usually it is eventually given written form.

A myth also may be told by means of no words at all, for example, through painting, sculpture, music, dance, and mime, or by a combination of various media as in the case of drama, song, opera, or the movies. Many specialists in the field of mythology, however; are not satisfied with such broad interpretations of the term myth. They attempt to distinguish "true myth" (or "myth proper") from other varieties and seek to draw distinctions in terminology between myth and other words often used synonymously, such as legend, saga, and folktale.
 

MYTH, SAGA OR LEGEND, AND FOLKTALE

Myth is a comprehensive (but not exclusive) term for stories primarily concerned with the gods and humankind's relations with them; saga, or legend (and we use the words interchangeably), has a perceptible relationship to his- tory; however fanciful and imaginative, it has its roots in historical fact. These two categories underlie the basic division of the first two parts of this book into "The Myths of Creation: The Gods" and "The Greek Sagas: Greek Local Legends." Interwoven with these broad categories are folktales, which are often tales of adventure, sometimes peopled with fantastic beings, and en livened by ingenious strategies on the part of the hero; their object is primarily, but not necessarily solely, to entertain. Rarely, if ever, do, we find a pristine, un contaminated example of any one of these forms. Yet the traditional categories of myth, folktale, and legend or saga are useful guides as we try to impose some order upon the multitudinous variety of classical tales.

How loose these categories are can be seen, for example, in the legends of Odysseus or of the Argonauts, which contain elements of history but are full of stories that may be designated as myths and folktales. The criteria for definition merge and the lines of demarcation blur.
 
 
 
 

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY

The impossibility of establishing a satisfactory definition of myth has not deterred scholars from developing comprehensive theories on the meaning and interpretation of myth, usually to provide bases for a hypothesis about origins. Useful surveys of the principal theories are easily available, so that we shall attempt to touch upon only a few theories that are likely to prove especially fruitful or are persistent enough to demand attention. One thing is certain: no single theory of myth can cover all kinds of myths. The variety of traditional tales is matched by the variety of their origins and significance, so that no monolithic theory can succeed in achieving universal applicability. Definitions will tend to be either too limiting or so broad as to be virtually useless. In the last analysis, definitions are enlightening because they succeed in identifying particular characteristics of different types of stories and thus provide criteria for classification.

Comparisons among the various stories told throughout the ages, all over the world, have become influential in establishing definitions and classifications. In the modern study of comparative mythology, much emphasis tends to be placed upon stories told by preliterate and primitive societies and too often the developed literature of the Greeks and Romans has virtually been ignored. It was not always so; for pioneers in the field, such as Frazer (identified be low), classical mythology was understandably fundamental. Yet classical mythology developed from something less sophisticated than the form in which we find it in, say, Homer or Euripides. Although it may be difficult and at times impossible to ascertain with any certainty the precise details of earlier versions of a classical story, its universal, thematic character remains.

True, it can be misleading to press analogies and parallels in the legends of widely divergent societies, especially where, as in Greek mythology, even our earliest literary sources (Homer and Hesiod) appear after a lengthy period of evolution, far removed from the myths' primitive origins. It is equally mislead ing to posit a "primitive mentality as if it were something childlike and sim ple, in contrast to the "sophisticated" mentality of more advanced societies such as the Greeks'. In fact, anthropologists have proved how far the myths of primitive societies reflect the complexities of social family structures; and their tales, however they may be compared to the classical, are far from being merely alogical and mystical.

Despite these warnings, we may assert that the comparative study of myths, especially by anthropologists (as opposed to philologically trained clas sicists), has been one of the most fruitful approaches to the interpretation of myths. Despite its faults, Sir J. G. Frazer's The Golden Bough remains a pioneering monument in the field. It is full of comparative data on kingship and ritual, but its value is lessened by Frazer's ritualist interpretation of myth (ex plained later) and by his eagerness to establish dubious analogies between myths of primitive tribes and classical myths. The application of comparative methods to the classical myths in particu lar will be discussed at more length below, after we have examined significant definitions, explanations, and classifications of myths.
 
 

MYTH AND RELIGION

Foremost and most compelling is the distinction between true myth and saga and folktale described above, that is, true myth is primarily concerned with the gods, religion, and the supernatural. Most Greek and Roman stories  reflect this universal preoccupation with creation, the nature of god and humankind, the afterlife, and other spiritual concerns. Thus mythology and religion are inextricably entwined. One tale or another once may have been believed at some time by certain people; specific creation stories and mythical conceptions of deity may still be considered true today and provide the basis for devout religious belief in a contemporary society. In fact, any collection of material for the comparative study of world mythologies will be dominated by the study of texts that are, by nature, religious.
 
 
 
 

MYTH AND TRUTH

Since, as we have seen, the Greek word for myth means "word," "speech," or "story," for a critic like Aristotle it became the designation for the plot of a play; thus, it is easy to understand how a popular view would equate myth with fiction. In everyday speech the most common association of the words myth and mythical is with what is incredible and fantastic. How often do we hear the expression, "It's a myth," uttered in derogatory contrast with such laudable concepts as reality, truth, science, and the facts?

Therefore important distinctions may be drawn between stories that are perceived as true and those that are not. The contrast between myth and real ity has been a major philosophical concern since the time of the Pre-Socratics. Myth is a many-faceted personal and cultural phenomenon created to provide a reality and a unity to what is transitory and fragmented in the world that we experience-the philosophical vision of the afterlife in Plato and any religious conception of a god are mythic, not scientific, concepts. Myth provides us with absolutes in the place of ephemeral values and a comforting perception of the world that is necessary to make the insecurity and terror of existence bearable.

It is disturbing to realize that our faith in absolutes and factual truth can be easily shattered. "Facts" change in all the sciences; textbooks in chemistry, physics, and medicine are sadly (or happily, for progress) soon out of date. It is embarrassingly banal but fundamentally important to reiterate the platitude that myth, like art, is truth on a quite different plane from that of prosaic and transitory factual knowledge. Yet myth and factual truth need not be mutually exclusive, as some so emphatically insist. A story embodying eternal values may contain what was imagined, at any one period, to be scientifically correct in every factual detail; and the accuracy of that information may be a vital component of its mythical raison d'etre. Indeed one can create a myth out of a factual story, as a great historian must do: any interpretation of the facts, no matter how credible, will inevitably be a mythic invention. On the other hand, a different kind of artist may create a nonhistorical myth for the ages, and whether it is factually accurate or not may be quite beside the point. Myth in a sense is the highest reality; and the thoughtless dismissal of myth as untruth, fiction, or a lie is the most barren and misleading definition of all. The dancer and choreographer
Martha Graham, sublimely aware of the timeless "blood memory" that binds our human race and that is continually revoked by the archetypal transformations of mythic art, offers a beautifully concise summation: as opposed to the discoveries of science that "will in time change and perhaps grow obsolete. . . art is eternal, for it reveals the inner landscape, which is the soul of man."
 

MYTH AND SOCIETY: BRONISLAV MALINOWSKI

Important in the development of modern theories is the work of Bronislav Malinowksi, who was stranded among the Trobriand Islanders (off New Guinea) during World War I; he used his enforced leisure to study the Tro brianders.12 His great discovery was the close connection between myths and social institutions, which led him to explain myths not in cosmic or mysterious terms, but as "charters" of social customs and beliefs. To him myths were re lated to practical life, and they explained existing facts and institutions by ref erence to tradition: the myth confirms (i.e., is the "charter" for) the institution, custom, or belief. Clearly such a theory will be valid only for certain myths (e.g., those involving the establishment of a ritual), but any theory that ex cludes the speculative element in myth is bound to be too limited.
 
 

MYTH AND RITUAL: ROBERT GRAVES

This brings us to the ritualist interpretation of myth, a most influential and persistent theory, which underlies Robert Graves's definition of "true myth," which for him is "the reduction to narrative shorthand of ritual mime per formed in public festivals, and in many cases recorded pictorially on temple walls, vases, seals, bowls, mirrors, chests, shields, tapestries, and the like. "He distinguishes this true myth from twelve other categories, such as philo sophical allegory, satire or parody, minstrel romance, political propaganda, theatrical melodrama, and realistic fiction. It is perceptive of Graves to realize that literary distinctions may be as enlightening as any other type of classifica tion for classical mythology. Yet stated most bluntly, this theory says that "myth implies ritual, ritual implies myth, they are one and the same." True, many myths are closely connected with rituals, and the theory is valuable for the connection it emphasizes between myth and religion; but it is patently un tenable to connect all true myth with ritual.
 
 
 
 

RATIONALISM VERSUS METAPHOR, ALLEGORY, AND SYMBOLISM

The desire to rationalize classical mythology arose far back in classical an tiquity, and is especially associated with the name of Euhemerus (ca. 300 B.C.), who claimed that the gods were men deified for their great deeds. The supreme god Zeus, for example, was once a mortal king in Crete who deposed his father, Cronus. At the opposite extreme from Euhemerism is the metaphorical interpretation of stories. Antirationalists, who favor metaphorical inter pretations, believe that traditional tales hide profound meanings. At its best the metaphorical approach sees myth as allegory (allegory is to be defined as sustained metaphor), where the details of the story are but symbols of universal truths. At its worst the allegorical approach is a barren exercise in cryptology: to explain the myth of Ixion and the Centaurs in terms of clouds and weather phenomena is hardly enlightening and not at all ennobling.
 
 
 
 

ALLEGORICAL NATURE MYTHS: MAX MULLER

An influential theory of the nineteenth century was that of Max Muller: myths are nature myths, all referring to meteorological and cosmological phe nomena. This is, of course, an extreme development of the allegorical ap proach; and it is hard to see how or why all myths can be explained as alle gories of, for example, day replacing night, winter succeeding summer, and so on. True, some myths are nature myths; and certain gods, for example Zeus, represent or control the sky and other parts of the natural order; yet it is just as true that a great many more myths have no such relationship to nature.
 
 
 
 

MYTH AND ETIOLOGY     [ANDREW LANG]

Another universalist theory says that a myth should be interpreted nar rowly as an explication of the origin of some fact or custom. Hence the theory is called etiological, from the Greek word for cause (aitia). In this view, the mythmaker is a kind of primitive scientist, using myths to explain facts that cannot otherwise be explained within the limits of society's knowledge at the time. This theory, again, is adequate for some myths, for example, those that account for the origin of certain rituals (Graves) or cosmology (Muller); but interpreted literally and narrowly it does not allow for the imaginative or metaphysical aspects of mythological thought. Yet, if one does not interpret etiological too literally and narrowly but defines-or better, replaces-it with the adjective explanatory, interpreted in its most general sense, one perhaps may find at last the most applicable of all the monolithic theories. Myths usually try to explain matters physical, emo tional, and spiritual not only literally and realistically but figuratively and metaphorically as well. Myths attempt to explain the origin of our physical world: the earth and the heavens, the sun, the moon, and the stars; where hu man beings came from and the dichotomy between body and soul; the source of beauty and goodness, and of evil and sin; the nature and meaning of love; and so on. It is difficult to tell a story that does not reveal, and at the same time somehow explain, something; and the imaginative answer usually is in some sense or other scientific or theological. The major problem with this uni versal etiological approach is that it does nothing to identify a myth specifi cally and distinguish it clearly from any other form of expression, whether scientific, religious, or artistic.
 
 
 
 

MYTH AND PSYCHOLOGY: FREUD AND JUNG

Sigmund Freud The metaphorical approach has taken many forms in the present century through the theories of the psychologists and psychoanalysts, most especially those of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. We need to present at least some of their basic concepts, which have become essential for any understanding of mythic creativity. Freud's views were not completely new of course (the concept of "determinism," for example, "one of the glories of Freudian theory" is to be found in Aristotle), but his formulation and analysis of the inner world of  humankind bear the irrevocable stamp of genius.

Certainly methods and assumptions adopted by comparative mythologists-the formulations of the structuralists and the modern interpretation of mythological tales as imaginative palliative and directive formulations, created to make existence in this real world tolerable-all these find a confirmation and validity in premises formulated by Freud. The endless critical controversy in our post-Freudian world merely confirms his unique contribution.

Among Freud's many important contemporaries and successors, Jung (deeply indebted to the master, but a renegade) must be singled out because of the particular relevance of his theories to a fuller appreciation of the deep- rooted recurring patterns of mythology. Among Freud's greatest contributions are his emphasis upon sexuality (and in particular infantile sexuality), his theory of the unconscious, his interpretation of dreams, and his identification of the Oedipus complex (although the term complex belongs to Jung). Freud has this to say about the story of King Oedipus:

 His fate moves us only because it might have been our own, because the ora cle laid upon us he fore our birth the very curse which rested upon him. It may be that we are all destined to direct our first sexual impulses toward our mothers, and our first impulses of hatred and resistance toward our fathers; our dreams convince us that we were. King Oedipus, who slew his father Laius and wedded his mother Jocasta, is nothing more or less than a wish-fulfillment-the fulfillment of the wish of our childhood. But we, more fortunate than he, in so far as we have not become psychoneurotics, have since our childhood succeeded in withdrawing our sexual impulses from our mothers, and in forgetting the lealousy of our fathers. . . . As the poet brings the guilt of Oedipus to light by his investigation, he forces us to become aware of our own inner selves, in which the same impulses are still extant, even though they are suppressed. This Oedipal incest complex is here expressed in the masculine form, of a man's behavior in relationship to his mother, but it also could be expressed in terms of the relationship between daughter and father; the daughter turns to the father as an object of love and becomes hostile to her mother as her rival. This is for Jung an Electra complex.

Dreams for Freud are the fulfillments of wishes that have been repressed and disguised. In order to protect sleep and relieve potential anxiety, the mind goes through a process of what is termed "dream-work," which consists of three primary mental activities: "condensation" of elements; "displacement" of elements in terms of allusion and a difference of emphasis; and "representation," the transmission of elements into imagery or symbols, which are many, varied, and often sexual. Something similar to this process may be discerned in the origin and  evolution of myths; it also provides insight into the mind and the methods of the creative artist, as Freud himself was well aware in his studies.

Thus Freud's discovery of the significance of dream-symbols led him and his followers to analyze the similarity between dreams and myths. Symbols are many and varied and often sexual (e.g., objects like sticks and swords are phallic). Myths, therefore, in the Freudian interpretation, reflect people's waking efforts to systematize the incoherent visions and impulses of their sleep world. The patterns in the imaginative world of children, savages, and neurotics are similar, and these patterns are revealed in the motifs and symbols of myth.
As can be seen from Freud's description (quoted above), one of the basic patterns is that of the Oedipus story, in which the son kills the father in order to possess the mother. From this pattern Freud propounded a theory of our ar chaic heritage, in which the Oedipal drama was played out by a primal horde in their relationship to a primal father. The murder and the eating of the father led to important tribal and social developments, among them deification of the father figure, the triumph of patriarchy, and the establishment of a totemic system, whereby a sacred animal was chosen as a substitute for the slain father. Most important of all, from the ensuing sense of guilt and sin for parri cide emerges the conception of God as Father who must be appeased and to whom atonement must be made. In fact, according to Freud, the Oedipus complex has inspired the beginning not only of religion but also of all ethics, art, and society. It is clear that Freud's connection between dreams and myths is illuminating for many myths, if not for all. In addition to the story of Oedipus one might single out, for example, the legend of the Minotaur or the saga of the House of Atreus, both of which deal with some of the most persistent, if re pressed, human fears and emotions and, by their telling, achieve a kind of catharsis.
 
 

Carl Jung . Jung went beyond the mere connection of myths and dreams to interpret myths as the projection of what he called the "collective unconscious" of the race, that is, a revelation of the continuing psychic tendencies of society. Jung made a distinction between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious: the personal concerns matters of an individual's own life; the collective embraces political and social questions involving the group. Dreams therefore may be either personal or collective. Thus myths contain images or "archetypes" (to use Jung's term, which embraces Freud's concept of symbols), traditional expressions of collective dreams, developed over thousands of years, of symbols upon which the society as a whole has come to depend. For Jung the Oedipus complex was the first archetype that Freud discovered. There are many such archetypes in Greek mythology and in dreams. Here are some of the ways in which Jung thought about archetypes, the collective unconscious, and mythology. An archetype is a kind of dramatic abbreviation of the patterns involved in a whole story or situation, including the way it develops and how it ends; it is a behavior pat tern, an inherited scheme of functioning. Just as a bird has the physical and mental attributes of a bird and builds its nest in a characteristic way, so human beings by nature and by instinct are born with predictable and identifiable characteristics. In the case of human behavior and attitudes, the patterns are expressed in archetypal images or forms. The archetypes of behavior with which human beings are born and which find their expression in mythological tales are called the "collective unconscious." Therefore, "mythology is a pro nouncing of a series of images that formulate the life of archetypes." Heroes like Heracles and Theseus are models who teach us how to behave.

Here are a few examples of archetypes. The anima is the archetypal image of the female that each man has within him; it is to this concept that he re sponds (for better or for worse) when he falls in love. Indeed the force of an archetype may seize a person suddenly, as when one falls in love at first sight. Similarly, the animus is the archetypal concept of the male that a woman in stinctively harbors within her. The old wise man and the great mother and symbols or signs of various sorts are also among the many Jungian archetypes. These appear in the dreams of individuals or are expressed in the myths of societies.

The great value of Jung's concept is that it emphasizes the psychological dependence of all societies (sophisticated as well as primitive) upon their traditional myths, often expressed also in religion and ritual. But Jung's theories like those we have already examined, have their limitations; they are not the' only key to an understanding of mythology.
 
 
 
 

THE STRUCTURALISTS: LEVI-STRAUSS, PROPP, AND BURKERT

Claude Levi-Strauss More recently, the structural theories of Claude Levi-Strauss have enriched th approach to myth, and they invite us to observe is most important concept, that is, the connection between myth and society.  Levi-Strauss sees myth as a mode of communication, like language or music. In music it is not the sounds themselves that are important but their structure, that is, the relationship of sounds to other sounds. In myth it is the narrative that takes the part of the sounds of music, and the structure of the narrative can be perceived at various levels and in different codes (e g culinary, astronomical, and sociological) From this it follows that no one version of a myth is the "right" one, all versions are valid, for myth, like society, is a living organism in which all the parts contribute to the existence of the whole As in an orchestral score certain voices or instruments play some sounds while the whole score is the sum of the individual parts, so in a myth the dif ferent, partial versions combine to reveal its total structure, including the rela tionship of the different parts to each other and to the whole.

Levi-Strauss's method is therefore rigorously analytical, breaking down each myth into its component parts. Underlying his analytical approach are basic assumptions, of which the most important is that all human behavior is based on certain unchanging patterns whose struct ure is the same in all ages and societies. Second, he assumes that society has a consistent structure and therefore a functional unity in which every component plays a meaningful part. As part of the working of this social machine, myths are derived ulti mately from the structure of the mind And the basic structure of the mind as of the myths it creates, is binary, that is, the mind is constantly dealing with pairs of contradictions or opposites It is the function of myth to mediate between these opposing extremes raw/cooked , life/death , hunter/hunted nature/culture, and so on. Mythical thought always progresses from the awareness of oppositions towards their resolution. " Myth, then, is a mode by which a society communicates and through which it finds a resolution be tween conflicting Opposites The logical structure of a myth provides a means by which the human mind can avoid unpleasant contradictions and thus through mediation, reconcile conflicts that would be intolerable if unrecon ciled. Levi-Strauss would maintain that all versions of a myth are equally au thentic for exploring the myth's structure.

The theories of Levi-Strauss have aroused passionate controversy among anthropologists and mythographers. His analysis of the Oedipus myth, for ex ample, has been widely criticized. Yet whatever one's judgment may be, thereis no doubt that this structural approach can illuminate a number of Greek myths, especially with regard to the function of "mediating." But it is open to the same objections as other comprehensive theories, that it establishes too rigid, too universal a concept of the functioning of the human mind. Indeed, the binary functioning of the human mind and of human society may be com mon, but it has not been proved to be either universal or necessary. Finally, Levi-Strauss draws most of his evidence from primitive and preliterate cultures, and his theories seem to work more convincingly for them than for the literate mythology of the Greeks. His approach is better applied, for example, to the early Greek succession myths than to the Sophoclean, literate version of the legends of Oedipus and his family. We should all the same be aware of the potential of structuralist theories and be ready to use them as we seek to make meaningful connections between the different constituent elements of a myth, or between different myths that share constituent elements.
 
 

Vladimir Propp The structural interpretation of myth was developed, long before the work of Levi-Strauss, by Vladimir Propp in his study of the Russian folktale. Like Levi-Strauss, Propp analyzed traditional tales into their constituent parts, from which he deduced a single, recurrent structure applicable to all Russian folktales. Unlike Levi-Strauss, however, he described this structure as linear, that is, having an unchanging temporal sequence, so that one element in the myth always follows another and never occurs out of order. This is significantly different from the pattern in Levi-Strauss's theory, where the elements may be grouped without regard to time or sequence. Propp divided his basic structure into thirty-one functions or units of action (which have been defined by others as motifemes, on the analogy of morphemes and phonemes in linguistic analysis). These functions are constants in traditional tales: the characters may change, but the functions do not. Further, these functions always occur in an identical sequence, although not all the functions need appear in a particular tale. Those that do, however, will always occur in the same sequence. Finally, Propp states that "all fairy tales are of one type in regard to their structure."

Propp was using a limited number (100) of Russian folktales of one sort only, that is, the Quest. Yet his apparently strict analysis has proven remark ably adaptable and valid for other sorts of tales in other cultures. The rigid se quence of functions is too inflexible to be fully applicable to Greek myths that have a historical dimension (e.g., some of the tales in the Trojan cycle of saga), where the "facts" of history, so far as they can be established, may have a sequence independent of structures whose origins lie in psychological or cul tural needs. On the other hand, Propp's theories are very helpful in comparing myths that are apparently unrelated, showing, for example, how the same functions appear in the myths, no matter what names are given to the characters who perform them. Mythological names are a strain on the memory. Merely to master them is to achieve very little, unless they can be related in some meaningful way to other tales, including tales from other mythologies. Dreary mem orization, however, becomes both easier and purposeful if underlying struc tures and their constituent units can be perceived and arranged logically and consistently.

A very simple example would be the structural elements common to the myths of Heracles, Theseus, Perseus, and Jason, whose innumerable details can be reduced to a limited sequence of functions. It is more difficult to estab lish the pattern for, say, a group of stories about the mothers of heroes (e.g., Callisto, Danae, Io, and Antiope). Yet they resolve themselves into a clear sequence of five functions: (1) the girl leaves home; (2) the girl is secluded (beside a river, in a tower, in a forest, etc.); (3) she is made pregnant by a god; (4) she suffers punishment or rejection or a similar unpleasant consequence; and (5) she is rescued, and her son is born.

We can say definitely that in most cases it is helpful to the student to ana lyze a myth into its constituent parts. There should be four consequences:

1. A perceptible pattern or structure will emerge.

2. It will be possible to find the same structure in other myths, thus making it easier to organize the study of myths.

3. It will be possible to compare the myths of one culture with those of another.

4. As a result of this comparison, it will be easier to appreciate the develop ment of a myth prior to its literary presentation.

Structuralism need not be-indeed, cannot be-applied to all classical mythology, nor need one be enslaved to either Levi-Strauss or the more rigid but simpler structure of Propp's thirty-one functions; it basically provides a means toward establishing a rational system for understanding and organizing the study of mythology.
 
 

Walter Burkert Walter Burkert has persuasively attempted a synthesis of structural theories with the more traditional approaches to classical mythology. In defining a theory of myth he developed four theses, which are in part based upon structural theories and in part meet the objection that these theories are not adequate for many Greek myths as they have come down to us after a long period of development. According to Burkert, classical myths have a "historical dimension" with "successive layers" of development, during which the original tale has been modified to fit the cultural or other circumstances of the time of its retelling. This will be less true of a tale that has sacred status, for it will have been "crystallized" in a sacred document-for example, the myth of Demeter in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter. In contrast, many Greek myths vary with the time of telling and the teller-for example, the myths of Orestes or Meleager appear differently in Homer from their treatment in fifth-century Athens or in Augustan Rome.

Burkert therefore believes that the structure of traditional tales cannot be discovered without taking into account cultural and historical dimensions. With regard to the former, the structure of a tale is shaped by its human cre ators and by the needs of the culture within which it is developed. Therefore the structure of a tale is "ineradicably anthropomorphic" and fits the needs and expectations of both the teller and the audience. (Indeed, as Burkert points out, this is why good tales are so easy to remember: "There are not ter ribly many items to memorize, since the structure has largely been known in advance.") Further-and here we approach the historical dimension-a tale has a use to which it is put, or, expressed in another way, "Myth is traditional tale applied."

This refinement of the structural theory allows for the development of a tale to meet the needs or expectations of the group for whom it is told-fam ily, city, state, or culture group, for example. A myth, in these terms, has refer- ence to "something of collective importance. This further definition meets a fundamental objection to many earlier "unitary" theories of myth. If myth is a sacred tale or a tale about the gods, how do we include, for example, the myths of Oedipus or Achilles? Similar objections can easily be made to other theories that we have been describing. The notions of "myth applied" and "collective importance" avoid the objection of rigid exclusivity, while they al low for the successive stages in the historical development of a myth without the Procrustean mental gymnastics demanded by the theories of Levi-Strauss.

Here, then, are the four theses of Burkert's modified synthesis of the struc tural and historical approaches:

1. Myth belongs to the more general class of traditional tale.

2. The identity of a traditional tale is to be found in a structure of sense within the tale itself.

3. Tale structures, as sequences of motifemes, are founded on basic biologi cal or cultural programs of actions.

4. Myth is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance.

These theses form a good working basis upon which to approach the inter pretation of myth. They make use of the significant discoveries of anthropolo gists and psychologists, while they allow flexibility in exploring the structure of classical myths. Finally, they take account of the historical development of myths and of the culture within which they were told. It will be useful to refer to these theses when studying individual traditional tales.
 
 
 
 

FEMINISM AND MYTHOLOGY

Feminist critical theories have led to many new, and often controversial, interpretations of classical myths. They approach mythology from the perspec tive of women and interpret the myths by focusing especially on the psycho logical and social situation of their female characters. These theories share with structuralism a focus on the binary nature of human society and the human mind, especially in the opposition (or complementary relationship) of female and male. Social criticism of the male-centered world of Greek mythol ogy goes back at least to Sappho, who, in her Hymn to Aphrodite, used the image of Homeric warfare to describe her emotions, and in her poem on Anaktoria contrasts what she loves, another human being, with what conven tional men love, the panoply of war. In 1942 the French philosopher Simone Weil took basically the same approach in her essay on the Iliad (translated by Mary McCarthy as The Iliad, or the Poem of Force), focusing on the issues of violence, power, and domination, fundamental to Homeric mythology.

More recently feminist scholars have used the critical methods of narratology and deconstruction to interpret the traditional tales, associating them with the theories of psychologists (especially Freud) and comparative anthropolo gists. Many feminist interpretations have compelled readers to think critically about the social and psychological assumptions that underly approaches to mythology, and they have led to original and stimulating interpretations of many myths, especially where the central figure is female. The work of feminist scholars has led to greater flexibility and often (although by no means always) greater sensitivity in modern readings of classical literature. Neverthe less, some scholars (among them leading classical feminists) have warned against the tendency to interpret classical myths in the light of contemporary sdcial and political concerns. For example, Marilyn Katz criticizes those who object on moral grounds to the apparent infidelity of Odysseus to his wife, saying that "such an interpretation . . . imports into the poem our own squea mish disapproval of the double standard. "
 
 
 
 

THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

We have established that, over the past few decades, comparative mythology ogy has been used extensively for the understanding of the myths of any one culture. Greek mythology, largely because of the genius of the authors who told the stories in their literary form, has too often in the past been considered as something so unusual that it can be set apart from other mythologies. It is true that the sophisticated versions of Greek and Roman authors are clearly to be differentiated from many preliterate tales gathered from other cultures by anthropologists. Yet the work of the stucturalists has shown that classical myths share fundamental characteristics with traditional tales everywhere. It is important to be aware of this fact and to realize that there are many successive layers in the development of Greek and Roman myths before their crystalliza tion in literary form. Often, and especially in structural interpretations, the earlier stages of a myth are discovered to have been rooted in another culture, or at least show the influence of other mythologies. For example, there are obvious parallels between the Greek creation and succession myths and myths of Near Eastern cultures. The myth of the cas tration of Uranus by Cronus is better understood if we compare it with the Hittite myth of Kumarbi, in which Anu, the sky-god, is castrated by Kumarbi, who rises against him. Kumarbi swallows Anu's genitals, spits them out when he cannot contain them, and is finally replaced by the storm-god. The struc ture of this tale is paralleled by the myth of Uranus, castrated by Cronus, who, in his turn, cannot hold what he has swallowed (in this case, his children) and is eventually replaced by the sky-god Zeus. Some details in the two tales, of course, are different, but the basic functions (kingship, revolt,castration, swal lowing, regurgitation, replacement by a new king) are the same and occur in the same sequence. Thus the basic structure is the same and a better under standing of the origin and purpose of the Greek myth, as narrated by Hesiod, is achieved by comparison with the older myth from Near Eastern culture. Whether direct influence can be proved (and scholars do not agree on this point), the structural similarities do at least show how Greek myths are to be studied in conjunction with those of other cultures.

As another example we may take the work of Joseph Campbell. He has done much to popularize the study of comparative mythology, and for this we are grateful, even though we wish that, in his popularizations at least, he paid more serious attention to the Greeks and the Romans. Perhaps he will appeal most of all to those who seek to recognize the kindred spiritual values that may be found through a comparison of the myths and legends of various peo ples over the centuries.
 
 
 
 

SOME CONCLUSIONS AND A DEFINITION OF CLASSICAL MYTH

Our survey of different interpretations of myth is intended to show that there is something of value to be found in a study of various approaches, and we have included only a selection from a wide range of possibilities. There are others that might be explored; belief in the importance and validity of diverse interpretations naturally varies from reader to reader. About this conclusion, however, we are convinced: it is impossible to develop any one theory that will be meaningfully applicable to all myths; there is no identifiable Platonic Idea or Form of a myth, embodying characteristics copied or reflected in the mythologies of the world. The many interpretations of the origin and nature of myths are primarily valuable for highlighting the fact that myths embrace different kinds of stories which may be classified in numerous different ways.

We realize fully the necessity for the study of comparative mythology and appreciate its many attractive rewards; but we are also wary of its dangers: oversimplification, distortion, and the reduction of an intricate masterpiece to a chart of leading motifs. Greek and Roman mythology is unique, but not so unique that we can set it apart from other mythologies. In other words, it will illuminate other mythologies drawn from primitive and preliterate societies, just as they will help us understand the origin, development, and meaning of classical literature. We must, however, be aware of the gulf that separates the primitive legends gathered by anthropologists from the sophisticated mythological thinking that evolved among the Greeks and Romans.
Even our earliest literary sources (Homer, Hesiod, and the lyric poets) provide artistic presenta tions of intellectual, emotional, and spiritual values and concepts in influential works of the highest order. Greek and Roman mythology shares similar char acteristics with the great literatures of the world, which have evolved mythologies of their own, whether or not they have borrowed thematic material from the ancients. Classical mythology has at least as much (if not more) in common with English and American literature (not to mention French and German, among others)as it does with preliterate comparisons and archaic artifacts.

Since the goal of this book is the transmission of the myths themselves as recounted in the Greek and Roman periods, literary myth is inevitably our pri mary concern. Many of the important myths exist in multiple versions of vary ing quality, but usually one ancient treatment has been most influential in es tablishing the prototype or archetype for all subsequent art  and thought. Whatever other versions of the Oedipus story exist, the dramatic treatment by Sophocles has established and imposed the mythical pattern for all time-he is the poet who forces us to see and feel the universal implications. Although his art is self-conscious, literary, and aesthetic, nevertheless the myth is the play. We cannot provide complete texts of Greek tragedy, but insofar as possible the original text of the dominant version of a myth will be translated in this book. We believe that a faithful translation or even a paraphrase of the sources is far better than a bald and eclectic retelling in which the essential spirit and artistic subtlety of literary myth is obliterated completely for the sake of scientific analysis. It is a commonplace to say that myths are by nature good stories, but some are more childish, confused, and repetitious than others; the really good ones are usually good because they have survived in a form molded by an artist.

There are two indisputable characteristics of the literary myths and leg ends of Greek and Roman mythology: their artistic merit and the inspiration they have afforded to others. We have, for example, from the ancient world touching renditions of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. The number of retellings of their tale in Western civilization has been legion (in every possible medium), and it seems as though the variations will go on forever. Thus we conclude with a short definition that concentrates upon the gratifying tenacity of the classical tradition, inextricably woven into the very fabric of our culture:

A classical myth is a story that, through its classical form, has attained a kind of immortality because its inherent archety pal beauty, profundity, and Power have inspired rewarding renewal and transformation by successive generations.