Theory of Mythology Review of Related Theories

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2. Theory of Mythology

Deardoff in his article Performative Mythology: A preliminary Outline toward a Theory and Praxis states that “Mythology, or Mythography, is commonly considered to be the study of myth. The practice here is to use myth to study other things. This method is to enter into the myth then reinterpret our previous position”Deardoff. There are many theories state by experts. However, I chose theory presented by Andrew Lang as quoted by Johnson in his article Myth as Thought: Modern Theory and Myth . Lang states that “all myths are aetiological” Johnson. It means that all myths offer a cause or explanation of something in the real world. In other word, we can say that myth is an explanatory. Myth lends structure and order to the world, and shows how the current state of things had originated. Buxton in his article Greek Mythology in Microsoft Encarta 2009 mentions as follows: Thus Hesiod’s Theogony narrated the development of the present ordering of the universe by relating it to Chaos, the origin of all things. By a complex process of violence, struggle, and sexual attraction, the regime contemporary to Zeus had eventually come into being. Another poem by Hesiod, “Works and Days”, gave an explanatory or aetiological account of why the world is full of trouble. The reason is that the first woman, Pandora, opened a jar whose lid she had been forbidden to lift; all the diseases and miseries previously confined in the jar escaped into the world Buxton. In other words, myth comes from world’s phenomenon. Myth functions as the source of knowledge to explain what happens in this world. Because of the limitation of knowledge at ancient time, myth is used to define anything beyond the human mind. For example, the phenomenon of thunder storm; instead of explaining that the 12 phenomenon is caused by the rapid expansion of atmospheric gases which are suddenly heated by lightning, it is simpler to say that there is god named Zeus, the god of thunder who is angry. Therefore, he sends thunder to the world to punish everyone who does not obey him.

B. Review on Greek Mythology