Mythography - Myth Criticism

Myth Criticism

Besides the anthropologist's reason — better understanding of a particular culture in its own terms, that is, for the purposes of cultural anthropology — there are very varied reasons behind the interest of the mythographer. The origins of Greek drama were the immediate cause of the rise of the myth-ritual school, of Jane Harrison, Gilbert Murray and others. Karl Kerenyi, also involved in Greek mythology, was an associate of Carl Jung, who adopted mythological material in his psychological theories.

In general literary criticism, myth criticism was put forward by Maud Bodkin, Philip Wheelwright, and others such as Francis Fergusson, Leslie Fiedler, and G. Wilson Knight. The critic Northrop Frye, working from Blake and the Bible as fundamental, always wished to distinguish himself from the myth-ritual school, but is often seen as in some sense having summed up the whole tendency. Robert Graves was interested in poetic theory, and supported his celebrated White Goddess with analysis harking back to Müller and Frazer, as well as the myth-ritual tendency.