The Characteristics of myths Are all those elements that generally identify all myths, or at least many of them. Through the characteristics can be identified if you are talking about a myth or not.
The Myths Are stories, usually of oral tradition, that tell fantastic stories whose protagonists are fantastic beings, or at least have characteristics that are not typical of humans.
Figures from Greek mythology.
The stories that are usually told in them try to give justification or explanation to the origin of certain things of the world, or to a phenomenon that happens.
For myths to emerge, they must come from a collective imagination. For this reason, it is important to know that myths are a direct legacy of a culture or a people.
The stories they tell are part of a collective belief that is not scientifically testable but can describe the society in which they are told.
There are many types of myths, which are classified according to the story they tell. Among them are the cosmogonics, which tell the creation of the world, the anthropogenic, who talk about the emergence of man and eschatological, which tell how the end of the world. There are many related categories in this area.
Description of the characteristics of the myths
The myths have inherent characteristics that determine their identification in this category or not. Some of them are:
They are about an existential question
For a myth to be such, it must first deal with an existential question. The level of depth of the existential question is closely related to the classification of myths.
Both anthropogenic and cosmogonic are endowed with an extremely strong existential question, such as why the world was created?, in addition to why man was created?
Death also has an essential part in the myths, and towards it usually they address much of the histories narrated in the myths.
According to the philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss, the existential question is one of the essential characteristics that must have the myths.
They are equipped with an explanatory function
When narrating a myth, also tells a story and therefore, something is explained. This explanation can go in two aspects: the understanding of the world in general and later the assimilation of the cosmovision of the group that produced the myth.
The myths, although fantastic, have elements of real life. In this way, they are able to explain the nature, physiognomic composition of men and astrological phenomena, for example.
In addition, the explanation also goes in the direction of understanding the social group that narrates it: its traditions, customs and way of seeing and assimilating to the world that surrounds it, besides establishing its relations with him.
They have a meaning that transcends the story
Myths are not stories To entertain. Although they have the capacity to keep alive a group of people astonished by history, the myths acquire a much greater significance.
In most cases, they have a high learning power, leaving moralities about what the actions of the social groups to which they belong should be.
In addition to the tutoring branch, the warnings are very present. Especially in the religious field, myths always have the purpose of following the orders of the gods and not altering them, at the risk that whoever does it may be condemned by them.
Your characters are fantastic
Although in most cases the characters take the figure of a human being, the personal characteristics of the characters are not such.
That is, extraordinary elements are acquired, such as superpowers, huge forces that face nature, the ability to fly, the vision of everything that happens...
For a myth to be a myth, it must have characters whose characteristics far exceed the ordinary and thus can tell a story that could not happen in real life.
Among these characters are the gods, the demigods, the heroes, the beasts, among many other fantastic figures.
They can be classified into types
As in any tale of popular tradition, myths can be classified into types according to their narrative characteristics.
This classification is very useful when making comparisons between myths of the same type of different cultures and societies.
Generally, one of the most common is Anthropogenic myth , Which tells how the creation of man in the world was. This type is usually tied with the cosmogonic myth, which tells the creation of the Earth.
There exist theogonic myths, which tell the rise of the gods and how they came to be implanted as such and to exert power on the planet.
Also found are foundational myths, such as that of Romulus and Remus which tells the founding of Rome and the eschatological myths, which announce how the end of the world will occur.
It speaks of the group in which it arose
One of the ways to understand a culture is through the understanding of its cultural manifestations.
The myth is one of the main ones, because they show the belief of one of the societies from what they believe was the birth of the world, even as they believe it will be the end of it.
In addition, from the myths tells the worldview that has a group on certain social issues, as well as their treatment of other cultures, similar or alien.
Irreconcilable opposites are manifested
This is another characteristic of Levi-Strauss. The myths are usually Manichaean stories, where grays do not exist.
The main confrontation tends to be that of good against evil, or the gods are also very present against the rest of the men who did not follow his orders.
Also, life in the face of death has a great presence among the myths. Even in the cosmogonic and eschatological myths, a dilemma confronts the creation of destruction.
References
- Baggini, J. (28 March 2006). Why do we have creation myths? The Guardian . Retrieved from guardian.co.uk.
- Bolle, K., Smith, J. et al. (2017). Myth. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc . Retrieved from britannica.com.
- Johnblack. (August 30, 2012). The meaning of the word Myth. Ancient Origins . Retrieved from ancient-origins.net.
- Magoulick, M. (s.f.) What is a myth? Georgia College . Retrieved from faculty.gcsu.edu.
- Murtagh, L. (s.f.). Common Elements in Creation Myths. Williams Computer Science . Retrieved from cs.williams.edu.
- Cultural Deputy of the Bank of the Republic. (2015). The myth. Bank of the Republic . Retrieved from: admin.banrepcultural.org.
- Uttinger, G. (1 October 2002). Eschatology and the Power of Myth. Chalcedon . Retrieved from chalcedon.edu.