Mythology

For other uses, see Mythology (disambiguation).

Odysseus Overcome by Demodocus' Song, by Francesco Hayez, 1813–15

Mythology can refer to the collected myths of a group of people—their collection of stories they tell to explain nature, history, and customs—or to the study of such myths.

As a collection of explanatory stories, mythology is a vital feature of every culture. Many sources for myths have been proposed, ranging from personification of nature or personification of natural phenomena, to truthful or hyperbolic accounts of historical events to explanations of existing rituals. Although the term is complicated by its implicit condescension, mythologizing is not just an ancient or primitive practice, as shown by contemporary mythopoeia such as urban legends and the expansive fictional mythoi created by fantasy novels and comics. A culture's collective mythology helps convey belonging, shared and religious experiences, behavioral models, and moral and practical lessons.

The study of myth dates back to ancient history. Rival classes of the Greek myths by Euhemerus, Plato, and Sallustius were developed by the Neoplatonists, and later revived by Renaissance mythographers. The nineteenth-century comparative mythology reinterpreted myth as a primitive and failed counterpart of science (E. B. Tylor), a "disease of language" (Max Müller), or a misinterpretation of magical ritual (James Frazer).

Recent approaches have rejected conflict between the value of myth and rational thought, often viewing myths as expressions to understand general psychological, cultural, or societal truths, rather than as inaccurate historical accounts.

Etymology

Mythology
Arabian Armenian Celtic Christian Chinese Egyptian Greek Guarani Hindu Islamic Japanese Jewish Korean Mayan Mesopotamian Micronesian Norse Persian Polynesian Roman Romanian Slavic Turkic
See also
Religion and mythology Comparative religion Symbolism Theology
List of mythologies

The term mythology predates the word myth by centuries. It first appeared in the fifteenth-century, borrowed from the Middle French term mythologie. The word mythology, ("exposition of myths"), comes from Middle French mythologie, from Late Latin mythologia, from Greek μυθολογία mythología ("legendary lore, a telling of mythic legends; a legend, story, tale") from μῦθος mythos ("myth") and -λογία -logia ("study"). Both terms translated the subject of Latin author Fulgentius' fifth-century Mythologiæ, which was concerned with the explication of Greek and Roman stories about their gods, commonly referred to as classical mythology. Although Fulgentius' conflation with the contemporary African Saint Fulgentius is now questioned, the Mythologiæ explicitly treated its subject matter as allegories requiring interpretation and not as true events. (The word mythología [μυθολογία] appears in Plato, but was used as a general term for "fiction" or "story-telling" of any kind, combining mỹthos [μῦθος, "narrative, fiction"] and -logía [-λογία, "discourse, able to speak about"].) From Lydgate until the seventeenth or eighteenth-century, mythology was similarly used to mean a moral, fable, allegory, or a parable. From its earliest use in reference to a collection of traditional stories or beliefs, mythology implied the falsehood of the stories being described. Although, with its remaining association with sacred tales of the Greeks and Romans, it came to be applied by analogy with similar bodies of traditional stories among other polytheistic cultures around the world. The Greek loanword mythos (pl. mythoi) and Latinate mythus (pl. mythi) both appeared in English before the first attestation of myth in 1830.

Terminology

See also: Legend and Folklore

Ballads of bravery (1877) part of Arthurian mythology.

In present use, mythology usually refers to the collected myths of a group of people, but may also mean the study of such myths. For example, Greek mythology, Roman mythology, and Hittite mythology all describe the body of myths retold among those cultures. However, landscape mythology describes the study of landscape used across various peoples with ties to totemism. Alan Dundes defined myth as a sacred narrative, which explains how the world and humanity evolved into their present for ., Dundes classified a sacred narrative as "a story that serves to define the fundamental worldview of a culture by explaining aspects of the natural world and delineating the psychological and social practices and ideals of a society; Bruce Lincoln defined myth as "ideology in narrative form." Many scholars in other fields use the term myth in somewhat different ways; in a very broad sense, the word can refer to any traditional story, popular misconception, or imaginary entity. Due to this pejorative sense, some scholars opt to return to the earlier term mythos. Its use was similarly pejorative and now more commonly refers to its Aristotelian sense as a "plot point" or to a collective mythology, as in the world building of H.P. Lovecraft.

Mythology is now often sharply distinguished from didactic literature such as fables, but its relationship with other traditional stories, such as legends and folktales, is much more nebulous. Main characters in myths are usually gods, demigods, or supernatural humans, while legends generally feature humans as their main characters. However, many exceptions or combinations exist, as in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. Myths are often endorsed by rulers and priests and are closely linked to religion or spirituality. In fact, many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths to be true accounts of their remote past. Creation myths particularly, take place in a primordial age when the world had not yet achieved its current form. Other myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified. A separate space is created for folktales, which are not considered true by the people who tell them. As stories spread to other cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales, sometimes even to the point of being reinterpreted as one. Its divine characters are recast as either as humans or demihumans such as giants, elves, and faeries.

Origins

Palmyrenian relief Louvre

Euhemerism

Main article: Euhemerism

See also: Herodotus

One theory claims myths are distorted accounts of real historical events. According to this theory, storytellers repeatedly elaborate upon historical accounts until the figures in those accounts gain the status of gods. For example, one might argue that the myth of the wind-god Aeolus evolved from a historical account of a king who taught his people to use sails and interpret the winds. Herodotus (fifth-century BC) and Prodicus also made claims of this kind. This theory is named euhemerism after mythologist Euhemerus (c.320 BC), who suggested that Greek gods developed from legends about human beings.

Allegory

Some theories propose that myths began as allegories. According to one such theory, myths began as allegories for natural phenomena: Apollo represents the sun, Poseidon represents water, and so on. According to another theory, myths began as allegories for philosophical or spiritual concepts: Athena represents wise judgment, Aphrodite represents desire, and so on. The nineteenth-century Sanskritist Max Müller supported an allegorical theory of myth. He believed myths began as allegorical descriptions of nature, but gradually came to be interpreted literally. For example, a poetic description of the sea as "raging" was eventually taken literally, and the sea was then thought of as a raging god.

Personification

See also: Mythopoeic thought

Some thinkers believe myths resulted from the personification of inanimate objects and forces. According to these thinkers, the ancients worshiped natural phenomena, such as fire and air, gradually coming to describe them as gods. For example, according to the theory of mythopoeic thought, the ancients tended to view things as persons, not as mere objects; thus, they described natural events as acts of personal gods, giving rise to myths.

Most cultures across the globe have some form of mythology

Myth-ritual theory

See also: Myth and ritual

According to the myth-ritual theory, the existence of myth is tied to ritual. In its most extreme form, this theory claims myths arose to explain rituals. This claim was first put forward by the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith. According to Smith, people begin performing rituals for a reason that is not related to myth. Forgetting the original reason for a ritual, they try to account for it by inventing a myth and claiming the ritual commemorates the events described in that myth. James Frazer, an anthropologist, has a similar theory. He believes primitive humans start out with a belief in magical laws. Later, when they begin to lose faith in magic, they invent myths about gods, claiming that their formerly considered magical rituals are actually religious rituals intended to appease the gods.

Functions of myth

Holy Grail digital art part of Christian mythology.

Mircea Eliade, a historian, argued that one of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior and that myths may also provide a religious experience. By telling or reenacting myths, members of traditional societies detach themselves from the present, returning to the mythical age, thereby bringing themselves closer to the divine.

Lauri Honko asserted that, in some cases, a society will reenact a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age. For example, it will reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present. Similarly, Roland Barthes argued that modern culture explores religious experience. Since it is not the job of science to define human morality, a religious experience is an attempt to connect with a perceived moral past, which is in contrast with the technological present.

Joseph Campbell writes:

"In the long view of the history of mankind, four essential functions of mythology can be discerned. The first and most distinctive – vitalizing all – is that of eliciting and supporting a sense of awe before the mystery of being." "The second function of mythology is to render a cosmology, an image of the universe that will support and be supported by this sense of awe before the mystery of the presence and the presence of a mystery." "A third function of mythology is to support the current social order, to integrate the individual organically with his group;" "The fourth function of mythology is to initiate the individual into the order of realities of his own psyche, guiding him toward his own spiritual enrichment and realization."

In a later work Campbell explains the relationship of myth to civilization:

The rise and fall of civilisations in the long, broad course of history can be seen largely to be a function of the integrity and cogency of their supporting canons of myth; for not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilisation. A mythological canon is an organisation of symbols, ineffable in import, by which the energies of aspiration are evoked and gathered toward a focus.

Yet the history of civilization is not one of harmony.

There are two pathologies. One is interpreting myth as pseudo-science, as though it had to do with directing nature instead of putting oneself in accord with nature, and the other is the political interpretation of myths to the advantage of one group within a society, or one society within a group of nations.

Campbell gives his answer to the question, "what is the function of myth today?" in the second episode of Bill Moyers's The Power of Myth series.

Indian mythologist Devdutt Pattanaik defines mythology as "a subjective truth of people that is communicated through stories, symbols and rituals". He adds, "unlike fantasy that is nobody’s truth, and history that seeks to be everybody’s truth, mythology is somebody’s truth."

Study of mythology

Myths and legends of Babylonia and Assyria (1916).

Historically, the important approaches to the study of mythology have been those of Vico, Schelling, Schiller, Jung, Freud, Lévy-Bruhl, Lévi-Strauss, Frye, the Soviet school, and the Myth and Ritual School.

Pre-modern theories

The critical interpretation of myth goes back as far as the Presocratics. Euhemerus was one of the most important pre-modern mythologists. He interpreted myths as accounts of actual historical events - distorted over many retellings. Sallustius, divided myths into five categories – theological, physical (or concerning natural laws), animistic (or concerning soul), material, and mixed. Mixed concerns myths which show the interaction between two or more of the previous categories and are particularly used in initiations.

To those who are trying to change content of the myth according to probability would find criticism in Plato's Phaedrus (229d), in which Socrates says that it is the province of one who is "vehemently curious and laborious, and not entirely happy . . ."

Plato famously condemned poetic myth, when discussing the education of the young, in the Republic, primarily on the grounds there was a danger the young and uneducated might take the stories of gods and heroes literally. Nevertheless, he constantly referred to myths of all kinds throughout his writings. As Platonism developed in the phases commonly called Middle Platonism and neoplatonism, such writers as Plutarch, Porphyry, Proclus, Olympiodorus, and Damascius wrote explicitly about the symbolic interpretation of traditional and Orphic myths. Interest in polytheistic mythology revived during the Renaissance, with early works on mythography appearing in the sixteenth-century, such as the Theologia mythologica (1532). While myths are not the same as fables, legends, folktales, fairy tales, anecdotes, or fiction, the concepts may overlap. Notably, during the nineteenth century period of Romanticism, folktales and fairy tales were perceived as eroded fragments of earlier mythology (famously by the Brothers Grimm and Elias Lönnrot). Mythological themes are often consciously employed in literature, beginning with Homer. The resulting work may expressly refer to a mythological background without itself being part of a body of myths (Cupid and Psyche). Medieval romance in particular plays with this process of turning myth into literature. Euhemerism, as stated earlier, refers to the rationalization of myths, putting themes formerly imbued with mythological qualities into pragmatic contexts. An example of this would be following a cultural or religious paradigm shift (notably the re-interpretation of pagan mythology following Christianization).

Conversely, historical and literary material may acquire mythological qualities over time. For example, the Matter of Britain (the legendary history of Great Britain, especially those focused on King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table) and the Matter of France, based on historical events of the fifth and eighth-centuries respectively, were first made into epic poetry and became partly mythological over the following centuries. "Conscious generation" of mythology has been termed mythopoeia by J. R. R. Tolkien, and was notoriously also suggested, very separately, by Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg.

Nineteenth-century theories

The first scholarly theories of myth appeared during the second half of the nineteenth-century. In general, these nineteenth-century theories framed myth as a failed or obsolete mode of thought, often by interpreting myth as the primitive counterpart of modern science.

For example, E. B. Tylor interpreted myth as an attempt at a literal explanation for natural phenomena. Unable to conceive impersonal natural laws, early humans tried to explain natural phenomena by attributing souls to inanimate objects, giving rise to animism. According to Tylor, human thought evolves through various stages, starting with mythological ideas and gradually progressing to scientific ideas. Not all scholars, not even all nineteenth-century scholars, have agreed with his view. For example, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl claimed "the primitive mentality is a condition of the human mind, and not a stage in its historical development."

Max Müller called myth a "disease of language". He speculated that myths arose due to the lack of abstract nouns and neuter gender in ancient languages. Anthropomorphic figures of speech, necessary in such languages, were eventually taken literally, leading to the idea that natural phenomena were in actuality conscious beings or gods.

James Frazer saw myths as a misinterpretation of magical rituals, which were themselves based on a mistaken idea of natural law. According to Frazer, humans begin with an unfounded belief in impersonal magical laws. When they realize applications of these laws do not work, they give up their belief in natural law in favor of a belief in personal gods controlling nature, thus giving rise to religious myths. Meanwhile, humans continue practicing formerly magical rituals through force of habit, reinterpreting them as reenactments of mythical events. Finally humans come to realize nature follows natural laws, and they discover their true nature through science. Here again, science makes myth obsolete as humans progress "from magic through religion to science."

Robert Segal asserts that by pitting mythical thought against modern scientific thought, such theories imply modern humans must abandon myth.

Twentieth-century theories

Prometheus (1868) by Gustave Moreau. In the mythos of Hesiodus and possibly Aeschylus (the Greek trilogy Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus Pyrphoros), Prometheus is bound and tortured for giving fire to humanity.

Many twentieth-century theories of myth rejected the nineteenth-century theories' opposition of myth and science. In general, "twentieth-century theories have tended to see myth as almost anything but an outdated counterpart to science […]. Consequently, modern individuals are not obliged to abandon myth for science."

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung tried to understand the psychology behind world myths. Jung asserted that all humans share certain innate unconscious psychological forces, which he called archetypes. He believed similarities between the myths from different cultures reveals the existence of these universal archetypes.

Joseph Campbell believed there were two different orders of mythology: myths that "are metaphorical of spiritual potentiality in the human being," and myths "that have to do with specific societies." His major work is The Masks of God I-IV. In the first volume, Primitive Mythology, he clearly outlines his intention:

Without straining beyond the treasuries of evidence already on hand in these widely scattered departments of our subject, therefore, but simply gathering from them the membra disjuncta of a unitary mythological science, I attempt in the following pages the first sketch of a natural history of the gods and heroes, such as in its final form should include in its purview all divine beings—as zoology includes all animals and botany all plants—not regarding any as sacrosanct or beyond its scientific domain. For, as in the visible world of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, so also in the visionary world of the gods: there has been a history, an evolution, a series of mutations, governed by laws; and to show forth such laws is the proper aim of science.

In his fourth volume Campbell coined the phrase, creative mythology, which he explains as:

In the context of traditional mythology, the symbols are presented in socially maintained rites, through which the individual is required to experience, or will pretend to have experienced, certain insights, sentiments and commitments. In what I'm calling creative mythology, on the other hand, this order is reversed: the individual has had an experience of his own – of order, horror, beauty, or even mere exhilaration-which he seeks to communicate through signs; and if his realization has been of a certain depth and import, his communication will have the force and value of living myth-for those, that is to say, who receive and respond to it of themselves, with recognition, uncoerced.

Claude Lévi-Strauss believed myths reflect patterns in the mind and interpreted those patterns more as fixed mental structures, specifically pairs of opposites (good/evil, compassionate/callous), rather than unconscious feelings or urges.

In his appendix to Myths, Dreams and Mysteries, and in The Myth of the Eternal Return, Mircea Eliade attributed modern humans’ anxieties to their rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred.

In the 1950s, Roland Barthes published a series of essays examining modern myths and the process of their creation in his book Mythologies.

Following the Structuralist Era (roughly the 1960s to 1980s), the predominant anthropological and sociological approaches to myth increasingly treat myth as a form of narrative that can be studied, interpreted, and analyzed like ideology, history, and culture. In other words, myth is a form of understanding and telling stories that is connected to power, political structures, and political and economic interests. These approaches are very much in contrast to approaches such as those of Campbell and Eliade that hold that myth has some type of essential connection to ultimate sacred meanings that transcend cultural specifics. In particular, there is a long-standing exploration of myth in relation to history from diverse social sciences. Most of these studies share the assumption that there is no necessary difference between history and myth in the sense that history is factual, real, accurate, and truth, while myth is the opposite. Myth, like ideology, is a word used to disparage the histories (or ways of understanding) of other sociopolitical groups.

Comparative mythology

Main article: Comparative mythology

Comparative mythology is the systematic comparison of myths from different cultures. It seeks to discover underlying themes that are common to the myths of multiple cultures. In some cases, comparative mythologists use the similarities between different mythologies to argue that those mythologies have a common source. This common source may be a common source of inspiration (e.g. a certain natural phenomenon that inspired similar myths in different cultures) or a common "protomythology" that diverged into the various mythologies we see today.

Nineteenth-century interpretations of myth were often highly comparative, seeking a common origin for all myths. However, modern-day scholars tend to be more suspicious of comparative approaches, avoiding overly general or universal statements about mythology. One exception to this modern trend is Joseph Campbell's book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), which claims that all hero myths follow the same underlying pattern. This theory of a monomyth is out of favor with the mainstream study of mythology.

Modern mythology

1929 Belgian banknote, depicting Ceres, Neptune and caduceus.

In modern society, myth is often regarded as historical or obsolete. Many scholars in the field of cultural studies are now beginning to research the idea that myth has worked itself into modern discourses. Modern formats of communication allow for widespread communication across the globe, thus enabling mythological discourse and exchange among greater audiences than ever before. Various elements of myth can now be found in television, cinema, and video games.

Although myth was traditionally transmitted through the oral tradition on a small scale, the technology of the film industry has enabled filmmakers to transmit myths to large audiences via film dissemination. In the psychology of Carl Jung, myths are the expression of a culture or society’s goals, fears, ambitions, and dreams. Film is ultimately an expression of the society in which it was credited, and reflects the norms and ideals of the time and location in which it is created. In this sense, film is simply the evolution of myth. The technological aspect of film changes the way myth is distributed, but the core idea of the myth is the same.

The basis of modern storytelling in both cinema and television lies deeply rooted in the mythological tradition. Many contemporary and technologically advanced movies often rely on ancient myths to construct narratives. The Disney Corporation is well-known among cultural study scholars for "reinventing" traditional childhood myths. While many films are not as obvious as Disney fairy tales in respect to the employment of myth, the plots of many films are largely based on the rough structure of the myth. Mythological archetypes, such as the cautionary tale regarding the abuse of technology, battles between gods, and creation stories, are often the subject of major film productions. These films are often created under the guise of cyberpunk action movies, fantasy, dramas, and apocalyptic tales. Although the range of narratives, as well as the medium in which it is being told, is constantly increasing, it is clear myth continues to be a pervasive and essential component of the collective imagination.

Recent films such as Clash of the Titans, Immortals, and Thor continue the trend of mining traditional mythology in order to create a plot for modern consumption.

With the invention of modern myths such as urban legends, the mythological tradition will carry on to the increasing variety of mediums available in the twenty-first-century and beyond. The crucial idea is that myth is not simply a collection of stories permanently fixed to a particular time and place in history, but an ongoing social practice within every society. Nowadays, many authors use mythology as a basis for their books, such as Rick Riordan, whose Percy Jackson and the Olympians series is situated in a modern-day world where the Greek deities are manifest, as well as his Kane Chronicles with the Egyptian pantheon.

See also

Fu Xi and Nüwa represented as half-snake, half-human creatures

General

• Archetypal literary criticism
• Architectural mythology
• Artificial mythology
• Creation myth
• Flood myth
• Fairy
• Fable
• Geomythology
• Legendary creature
• LGBT themes in mythology
• Mytheme
• Mythical place

• National myth
• Origin-of-death myth
• Poles in mythology

Mythological archetypes

• Culture hero
• Death deity
• Earth Mother
• First man or woman (disambiguation)
• Hero
• Life-death-rebirth deity
• Lunar deity
• Psychopomp
• Sky father
• Solar deity
• Trickster
• Underworld

Myth and religion

• Basque mythology
• Bengali mythology
• Celtic mythology
• Chinese mythology
• Christian mythology
• Egyptian mythology
• Greek mythology
• Hindu mythology
• Hittite mythology
• Inca mythology
• Islamic mythology
• Japanese mythology
• Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
• Jewish mythology
• Magic and mythology
• Maya mythology
• Religion and mythology
• Roman mythology
• Tahiti and Society Islands mythology

Lists

• List of deities
• List of legendary creatures by type
• List of legendary creatures
• List of mythical objects
• List of mythologies
• List of women warriors in folklore

Popular culture and media

• Mythopoeia- artificially constructed mythology, mainly for the purpose of storytelling.

Journals about mythology

• New Comparative Mythology / Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée
• Ollodagos
• Studia Mythologica Slavica
• Mythological Studies Journal
• The Journal of Germanic Mythology and Folklore

References

• Armstrong, Karen. "A Short History of Myth". Knopf Canada, 2006.
• Roland Barthes, Mythologies (1957)
• Bascom, William. "The Forms of Folklore: Prose Narratives". 'Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 5–29.
• Bulfinch, Thomas. Bulfinch's Mythology. Whitefish: Kessinger, 2004.
• Campbell, Joeseph. "The Power of Myth". New York: Doubleday, 1988.
• Doty, William. Myth: A Handbook. Westport: Greenwood, 2004.
• Downing, Christine. The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine. New York: Authors Choice Press. 2007.
• Dundes, Alan. "Binary Opposition in Myth: The Propp/Levi-Strauss Debate in Retrospect". Western Folklore 56 (Winter, 1997): 39–50.
• Dundes, Alan. Introduction. Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 1–3.
• Dunes, Alan. "Madness in Method Plus a Plea for Projective Inversion in Myth". Myth and Method. Ed. Laurie Patton and Wendy Doniger. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1996.
• Eliade, Mircea. Myth and Reality. Trans. Willard R. Trask. New York: Harper & Row, 1963.
• Eliade, Mircea. Myths, Dreams and Mysteries. Trans. Philip Mairet. New York: Harper & Row, 1967.
• "Euhemerism". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions. Ed. John Bowker. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC – Berkeley Library. 20 March 2009 .
• Fabiani, Paolo "The Philosophy of the Imagination in Vico and Malebranche". F.U.P. (Florence UP), English edition 2009. PDF
• Frankfort, Henri, et al. The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East. Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1977.
• Frazer, James. The Golden Bough. New York: Macmillan, 1922.
• Graf, Fritz. Greek Mythology. Trans. Thomas Marier. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
• Honko, Lauri. "The Problem of Defining Myth". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 41–52.
• Humphrey, Sheryl. The Haunted Garden: Death and Transfiguration in the Folklore of Plants. New York: DCA Art Fund Grant from the Council on the Arts and Humanities for Staten Island and public funding from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, 978-1-300-55364-9, 2012.
• Kirk, G.S. (1973), Myth: Its Meaning and Functions in Ancient and Other Cultures. Berkeley: Cambridge University Press, 1973.
• Kirk, G.S. (1984), "On Defining Myths". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 53–61.
• Leonard, Scott. "The History of Mythology: Part I". Scott A. Leonard's Home Page. August 2007.Youngstown State University, 17 November 2009
• Littleton, Covington. The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumezil. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
• Meletinsky, Elea. The Poetics of Myth. Trans. Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky. New York: Routledge, 2000.
• "myth." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 21 March 2009
• "myths". A Dictionary of English Folklore. Jacqueline Simpson and Steve Roud. Oxford University Press, 2000. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. UC – Berkeley Library. 20 March 2009 Oxfordreference.com
• Northup, Lesley. "Myth-Placed Priorities: Religion and the Study of Myth". Religious Studies Review 32.1(2006): 5–10.
• O'Flaherty, Wendy. Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook. London: Penguin, 1975.
• Pettazzoni, Raffaele. "The Truth of Myth". Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth. Ed. Alan Dundes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984. 98–109.
• Segal, Robert. Myth: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004.
• Simpson, Michael. Introduction. Apollodorus. Gods and Heroes of the Greeks. Trans. Michael Simpson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1976. 1–9.
• Singer, Irving. "Introduction: Philosophical Dimensions of Myth and Cinema." Cinematic Mythmaking: Philosophy in Film. Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States: MIT Press Books, 2008. 3–6. Web. 23 Oct. 2011.
• Slattery, Dennis Patrick. Bridge Work: Essays on Mythology, Literature and Psychology. Carpinteria: Mandorla Books. 2015.
• Indick, William. "Classical Heroes in Modern Movies: Mythological Patterns of the Superhero." Journal of Media Psychology 9.3 (2004): 93–95. York University Libraries. Web.
• Koven, Mikel J. "Folklore Studies and Popular Film and Television: a Necessary Critical Survey." Journal of American Folklore 116.460 (2003): 176–195. Print.
• Olson, Eric L. (May 3, 2011). "Great Expectations: the Role of Myth in 1980s Films with Child Heroes" (PDF). Virginia Polytechnic Scholarly Library. Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University. Retrieved October 24, 2011. 
• Matira, Lopamundra. "Children's Oral Literature and Modern Mass Media." Indian Folklore Research Journal 5.8 (2008): 55–57. Print.
• Cormer, John. "Narrative." Critical Ideas in Television Studies. New York, United States: Charendon Press, 2007. 47–59. Print.

Further reading

• Stefan Arvidsson, Aryan Idols. Indo-European Mythology as Ideology and Science, University of Chicago Press, 2006. ISBN 0-226-02860-7
• Kees W. Bolle, The Freedom of Man in Myth. Vanderbilt University Press, 1968.
• Richard Buxton. The Complete World of Greek Mythology. London: Thames & Hudson, 2004.
• E. Csapo, Theories of Mythology (2005)
• Edith Hamilton, Mythology (1998)
• Graves, Robert. "Introduction." New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology. Trans. Richard Aldington and Delano Ames. London: Hamlyn, 1968. v–viii.
• Joseph Campbell
  • The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.
  • Flight of the Wild Gander: Explorations in the Mythological Dimension: Select Essays 1944–1968 New World Library, 3rd ed. (2002), ISBN 978-1-57731-210-9.
  • Thou Art That (book). New World Library, 2001, ISBN 1-57731-202-3
• Mircea Eliade
  • Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton University Press, 1954.
  • The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. Trans. Willard R. Trask. NY: Harper & Row, 1961.
• Louis Herbert Gray [ed.], The Mythology of All Races, in 13 vols., 1916-1932.
• Lucien Lévy-Bruhl
  • Mental Functions in Primitive Societies (1910)
  • Primitive Mentality (1922)
  • The Soul of the Primitive (1928)
  • The Supernatural and the Nature of the Primitive Mind (1931)
  • Primitive Mythology (1935)
  • The Mystic Experience and Primitive Symbolism (1938)
• Charles H. Long, Alpha: The Myths of Creation. George Braziller, 1963.
• Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth, 5th edition, Prentice-Hall.
• Santillana and Von Dechend (1969, 1992 re-issue). Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth, Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-87923-215-3.
• Isabelle Loring Wallace and Jennie Hirsh, Contemporary Art and Classical Myth. Farnham: Ashgate (2011), ISBN 978-0-7546-6974-6
• Walker, Steven F. and Segal, Robert A., Jung and the Jungians on Myth: An Introduction, Theorists of Myth, Routledge (1996), ISBN 978-0-8153-2259-7.
• Vanda Zajko and Miriam Leonard, Lauphing with Medusa. Oxford: Oxford `University Press (2006), ISBN 978-0-19-923794-4.
• Zong, In-Sob. Folk Tales from Korea. 3rd ed. Elizabeth: Hollym, 1989.

External links

• The New Student's Reference Work/Mythology, ed. Beach (1914), at wikisource.
• Leonard, Scott. "The History of Mythology: Part I". Youngstown State University.
• Greek mythology
• Sacred texts
• Myths and Myth-Makers Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by comparative mythology by John Fiske.
• LIMC Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, a database of ancient objects linked with mythology
• Joseph Campbell on Bill Moyers's The Power of Myth
• Dreams, Visions, and Myths: Making Sense of Our World