User:JHCC/Sandbox

NOTICE

The following is my sandbox for experimenting with a few ideas for the myth article. Anyone is welcome to leave any comments or proposed changes in the Comments section below. Since this my own userpage, any changes to the text itself will be reverted if I do not like them. JHCC (talk) 04:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Etymology and usage

The English word Myth carries a number of different meanings, which bear close examination. The ancient Greek Μυθος originally meant simply word or speech, and by extension, a story or narrative. This quickly took on the sense of fiction, and both Pindar (d. 443 BC) and Plato (d. ca. 347 BC) contrast Μυθος with Λογος as "historical truth." Most ancient usages of Μυθος are specifically as fiction; see here for details in the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English Lexicon entry on Μυθος.

The English language has retained this early usage as myth as fiction. The 1961 Oxford English Dictionary defines myth primarily as:

A purely fictitious narrative usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena. Properly distinguished from allegory and from legend (which implies a nucleus of fact) but often used vaguely to include any narrative having fictitious elements. (Volume VI, p. 818)

More recent dictionaries also include this sense:

An unfounded or false notion (Merriam Webster Online)

A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology and A fictitious story, person, or thing (both from the American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition)

With the development of Mythology as the academic study of myths (as opposed to simply a body of myths or their telling), Myth has taken on a wider meaning. Since many — indeed, most — ancient myths "embody some popular idea concerning natural or historical phenomena" and particularly the origin (often supernatural) and meaning (often religious) of those phenomena, myth has come to describe any traditional narrative that embodies religious or cultural meaning, especially in reference to a particular community's worldview or cultural identity. Thus, the traditional stories that different religions use to describe the origins of the world would be considered examples of a creation myth.

Initially, academic usage of myth and mythology was restricted to ancient (often obsolete) religions and to the so-called "primative" religions of non-Christian and non-European peoples. In this usage, there may have been an element of cultural and religious bias, an implied prejudice that these beliefs were necessarily false. The earliest usage of myth as "a fictional narrative" would certainly have contributed to this implication. However, in time, growing respect for non-European and non-Christian traditions, objection by practitioners of those religions to the implication that their beliefs were false, and the expanded application of "myth" and "mythology" to all religions led to the gradual elimination of the notion of "falsity" in the academic sense of "myth". In this sense, myth is understood simply as a type of narrative, with no implications of whether it is true or false. Indeed, this sense has proved so useful that it has been further expanded to also include stories that carry secular meaning and that do not necessarily have any supernatural content. Thus, stories describing the beginnings of a local community or nation would be examples of a founding myth or a national myth.

This later academic usage has become more and more common, to some extent displacing the earlier meaning of "myth equals fiction." This is reflected in the change in the OED entry; the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (Tenth Edition) defines myth primarily thus:

1 a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.

2 a widely held but false belief. > a fictitious person or thing. > an exaggerated or idealized conception of a person or thing.

Thus, the earlier meaning of "myth equals fiction" has not disappeared and remains both current and common in everyday usage. This often causes confusion when it is not clear whether the common usage or the academic usage is intended. Academics may unintentionally cause offense by seeming to imply falsehood in religious belief, and denying the "truth-neutral" nature of the academic usage misses the point of a useful academic categorization. Of course, individual motivations vary, and a particular academic may indeed wish to exploit the ambiguity of myth to imply that particular belief is false. Nonetheless, it is advisable to tread carefully when using myth and mythology and to make clear which sense is intended.

SJ

MYTHOLOGY 1 n.s. [ mu&qoj and lo&goj mythologie, French.] System of fables; explication of the fabulous history of the gods of the heathen world. The modesty of mythology deserves to be commended: the scenes there are laid at a distance; it is once upon a time, in the days of yore, and in the land of Utopia. Bentley. MYTHOLOGY 4 n.s. [ mu&qoj and lo&goj mythologie, French.] System of fables; explication of the fabulous history of the gods of the heathen world. The modesty of mythology deserves to be commended: the scenes there are laid at a distance; it is once upon a time, in the days of yore, and in the land of Utopia. Bentley.

FABLE 1 n.s. [fable, French; fabula, Latin.]

1. A feigned story intended to enforce some moral precept.

Jotham's fable of the bees is the oldest extant, and as beautiful as any made since. Addison's Spectator.

2. A fiction in general.

Triptolemus, so sung the nine, Strew'd plenty from his cart divine; But, spite of all those fable makers, He never sow'd on Almaign acres. Dryden.

3. A vitious or foolish fiction.

But refuse profane and old wives fables. Bible 1 Tim.

4. The series or contexture of events which constitute a poem epick or dramatick.

The moral is the first business of the poet: this being formed, he contrives such a design or fable as may be most suitable to the moral. Dryden's Dufresnoy.

The first thing to be considered in an epick poem is the fable, which is perfect or imperfect, according as the action, which it relates, is more or less so. Addison's Spectator.

5. A lye. This sense is merely familiar.

FABLE 1 v.n. [from the noun.]

1. To feign; to write not truth but fiction.

That Saturn's sons receiv'd the three-fold reign Of heav'n, of ocean, and deep hell beneath, Old poets mention, fabling. Prior.

Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell, That wav'ring conquest still desires to rove! In Marlbro's camp the goddess knows to dwell. Prior.

2. To tell falshoods; to lye.

He fables not: I hear the enemy. Shakesp. Henry VI.

FABLE 1 v.a.

To feign; to tell of falsety.

We mean to win, Or turn this heav'n itself into the hell Thou fablest. Milton's Paradise Lost,

Ladies of th' Hesperides, that seem'd Fairer than feign'd of old, or fabl'd since Of fairy damsels met in forest wide, By knights. Milton's Parad. Lost.

FABLE 4 n.s. [fable, French; fabula, Latin.]

1. A feigned story intended to enforce some moral precept.

Jotham's fable of the trees is the oldest extant, and as beautiful as any made since. Addison's Spectator.

2. A fiction in general.

Triptolemus, so sung the nine, Strew'd plenty from his cart divine; But, spite of all those fable makers, He never sow'd in Almaign acres. Dryden.

Reverts

[1] language cleanup, but removed useful definition

myth

Myth (Greek Μυθος, a narrative) has a number of different senses in English, most of which relate to the primary meaning of a story.

Definition

In common usage, a myth is a

1. A story of great but unknown age which originally embodied a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are personified; an ancient legend of a god, a hero, the origin of a race, etc.; a wonder story of prehistoric origin; a popular fable which is, or has been, received as historical.

2. A person or thing existing only in imagination, or whose actual existence is not verifiable.

(Webster's 1913) [2]

1 a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, typically involving the supernatural.

2 a widely held but false belief.

3 a fictitious person or thing.

(Compact OED) [3]

1a. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the worldview of a people, as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth. b. Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.

2. A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal: a star whose fame turned her into a myth; the pioneer myth of suburbia.

3. A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.

4. A fictitious story, person, or thing: “German artillery superiority on the Western Front was a myth” (Leon Wolff). (AHD) [4]

Samuel Johnson's dictionary defines "mythology" as "System of fables; explication of the fabulous history of the gods of the heathen world." and fable as "1. A feigned story intended to enforce some moral precept. 2. A fiction in general."

Controversy

(or some such) — to neutrally describe the issues arising from the application of different senses of "myth", especially in reference to religious beliefs.

Related concepts

Myth as opposed to fable

Carries moral lesson. Never believed to be true. Shares pejorative sense of "falsehood" or fiction"

Myth as opposed to legend

Specifically historical. Contrast in 1961 OED.