Robert A. Segal - Myth Analyzed

Comparing and evaluating modern theories of myth, this book offers an overview of explanations of myth from the social sciences and the humanities. This ambitious collection of essays uses the viewpoints of a variety of disciplines: psychology, anthropology, sociology, politics, philosophy, religious studies, and literature. Each discipline advocates its own generalizations about the origin, the function, and the subject matter of myth. The issue is always not what makes any myth distinct but what makes all myths myth. The book is divided into five sections, covering topics such as myth and psychoanalysis, hero myths, myth and science, myth and politics, and myth and the physical world. Chapters engage with an array of theoristsamong them Freud, Jung, Campbell, Rank, Winnicott, Tylor, Frazer, Malinowski, Lvy-Bruhl, Lvi-Strauss, Harrison, and Burkert. The book considers whether myth still plays a role in our lives. Theories show that myths arise anything but spontaneously. They are the result of a specific need, which varies from theory to theory.

This is a fascinating survey by a leading voice in the study of myth. It will be of much interest to scholars of myth and to many in sociology, anthropology, psychology, politics, and economics.

Robert A. Segal is the Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He came to the United Kingdom from his native United States in 1994. He has taught at Lancaster University and since 2006 at Aberdeen. He teaches and writes on theories of myth, on theories of religion, and on Gnosticism. Among the books he has written or edited are The Poimandres as Myth (1986), Joseph Campbell (revised 1990), The Gnostic Jung (1992), Jung on Mythology (1998), The Myth and Ritual Theory (1998), Theorizing about Myth (1999), The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion (second ed. 2020), and Myth: A Very Short Introduction (revised ed. 2015). He is editor of Routledges Theorists of Myth book series.

Series Editor: Robert A. Segal

8 Northrop Frye on Myth

Ford Russell

9 Political Myth

Christopher G. Flood

10 Jung and the Jungians on Myth

Steven F. Walker

11 Rene Girard and Myth

Richard J. Golsan

12 Myth and Religion in Mircea Eliade

Douglas Allen

13 The Myth and Ritual School:
J.G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists

Robert Ackerman

14 Psychoanalytic Approaches to Myth

Daniel Merkur

15 Kenneth Burke on Myth

Lawrence Coupe

16 Martin Buber on Myth

S. Daniel Breslauer

17 The Structuralists on Myth

Roland Champagne

18 Cassirer and Langer on Myth

William Schultz

19 Myth and the Human Sciences:

Hans Blumenbergs Theory of Myth

Angus Nicholls

20 Myth Analyzed

Robert A. Segal

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Advances-in-Sociology/book-series/SE0511

First published 2021

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

and by Routledge

52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Robert A. Segal

The right of Robert A. Segal to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Every effort has been made to contact copyright-holders. Please advise the publisher of any errors or omissions, and these will be corrected in subsequent editions.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-0-367-22157-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-27353-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC

To Speck, a much loved cat

This book is a collection of essays, all of them revised and some of them unpublished, about theories of myth. It complements my 1999 collection Theorizing about Myth. In the first chapter of the present collection I survey the main theories from the past century and a half. In the remaining chapters I analyze specific theories or groups of theories. My interest is less in myths than in theories of myth, even if theories most certainly serve to elucidate specific myths.

Most theories of myth, though hardly all, stem from the social sciences, which go back to, above all, the mid nineteenth century: anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and economics. Other theories come from the humanities: philosophy, religious studies, and literature.

Theories of any kind are generalizations, about myth or anything else. For me, there are no theories of, say, Babylonian or Israelite myth, only of myth per se or else of a variety of myths, such as hero myths or creation myths. Theories are about a category. The number of members of a category can range from a few to thousands. What matters is that a theory is intended to elucidate all the members of a category, whatever the number of members.

Theories of myth consider three main questions: what is the origin, what is the function, and what is the subject matter of myth? Origin means why and how myth arises. Function means why and how myth persists. The answer to the why of origin and function is a need, which myth arises to fulfill and lasts by continuing to fulfill. What the need is varies from theory to theory. Subject matter means the referent of myth. Some theories read myth literally, so that the referent is the apparent one, such as gods. Other theories read myth symbolically, and the symbolized referent can be anything.

Theories seek the similarities among myths. The generalizations are exactly what myths share. There are two main explanations of similarities: transmission and independent invention. Theories of myth assume independent invention. The two approaches to similarities are not incompatible, and independent inventionists are willing to attribute similarities in details to transmission. But independent invention offers a superior explanation of overall similarities.

First, the scope of theories is worldwide, whereas that of transmission tends to be regional. To account for myth worldwide is to assume not that myth exists everywhere but that myth can be accounted for the same way wherever it is found. There have been attempts to trace myth from a single starting pointfor example, ancient Egyptbut those attempts have proved at best speculative.

Second, the explanations of similarities given by theories are based on regularities, whereas the explanations given by transmission are happenstance. Similarities via transmission are the product of circumstances: one culture happens to come in contact with another. Similarities via theories are the product of something universal: human nature, society, or the external world.