Method
Structuralist theory of mythology
Overview
The structuralist theory of mythology is a method of analyzing mythology, in which the mythology is treated as if it follows the same structure and rules as language. The method was devised by French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who claimed that myth, like language, can be broken down into constituents (which he called "mythemes" in the case of mythology). Each constituent could then be addressed separately but, at the same time, compared and contrasted with the other constituents. The structuralist method differs from the symbolist method, which instead seeks meaning solely within the constituents and not between them.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Following upon these local gods came other gods, representing the guardian powers of a tribe, a vocation, or some other social group. At the third stage of development, the 'particular god' acquired a personal nature, and thus finally became a god proper. The gods of this final stage are called by Usener 'personal gods.'
Wilhelm Max Wundt, Elements of Folk Psychology Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
States what Structuralist theory of mythology is.
The ancient philosophers found in mythology many ideas which, if not originally derived from nature, were easily transferred to her—such, for example, as love or hate, corresponding to attraction or repulsion; or the conception of necessity allied both to the regularity and irregularity of nature; or of chance, the nameless or unknown cause; or of justice, symbolizing the law of compensation; are of the Fates and…
Plato, Timaeus
Close in meaning to Structuralist theory of mythology; the term itself is not named.
Men, however, in a state of society are still men; their actions and passions are obedient to the laws of _individual_ human nature.”[13] Obviously what is ignored in such a statement is that “the actions and passions” of individual men are in the concrete what they are, their beliefs and purposes included, because of the social medium in which they live; that they are influenced throughout by contemporary and…
John Dewey, The public and its problems
Close in meaning to Structuralist theory of mythology; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed Structuralist theory of mythology
Related ideas
Place in the tradition
Part of Myth.
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