MYTHS ARE HISTORY
On the History of Comparative World Mythology
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On the History of Comparative World Mythology
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The fact that diverse geographical areas and historical epochs exhibit striking parallels in mythic themes was already recognized in the ancient world. The interested study of other peoples’ mythologies, though relatively marginal in scope, has been a perennial activity since the sixth century BC.
In ancient Greece, the so-called interpretatio Graeca was among the earliest instances of comparative mythology which attempted to establish a cross-cultural equivalence of the gods, — that is, the use of Greek names for gods of other peoples. Near Eastern storm gods, for instance, were interpreted by Greek authors as Zeus; likewise, the fifth-century BC historian Herodotus reported that the gods of Egypt were basically Egyptian names for Greek divinities. Ctesias of Cnidus (5th c. BC) on the Persians and Indians Megasthenes (c. 390-290 BC) on the Indians Poseidonius (c. 135-51 BC) on the Celts Similarly, Roman authors identified Celtic or Germanic gods as Jupiter, Mars, or Mercury. Such identifications, employing the interpretatio Romana, are readily apparent in the English and French names of the days of the week. The English names are derived from the Germanic gods, the French from the Roman: thus Tuesday (Tiu’s day) corresponds to mardi, day of Mars; Wednesday (Woden’s day) corresponds to mercredi, day of Mercury; and Thursday (Thor’s day) corresponds to jeudi, day of Jupiter. Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) on the Celts of Gaul Tacitus (c. 56-120) on the Germans In the Far East, Buddhists commonly interpreted native Chinese and Japanese gods as “manifestations” of cosmic Buddhas. |
The comparative ethnographic tradition begun by the Ionian school continues with varying fortune to the present day. A proliferation of cultural studies and critical theories of comparative mythology have continued to broaden our scope of inquiry. Dependent upon travel and first-hand acquaintance, such studies have flourished in periods of travel and trade, and declined in periods of isolation. But it was only on account of the colonial expansion of the West from the time of the Renaissance forward that the general unanimity of cosmogonical mythic traditions became recognized as truly global in scope.
— Those who recognized the universal unanimity of world myth include: |
Issac La Peyrère (1596-1676)
Samuel Bochart (1599-1667) Bernard de Fontanelle (1657-1757) Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) Nicolas-Antoine Boulanger (1722-1759) Sir William Jones (1746-1794) Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) Godfrey Higgins (1772-1833) Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) Charles-Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg (1814-1874) |
Now thanks to the unexpected archaeological discoveries of the last 150 years or so, we can recognize an even greater commonality. Counterparts have continued to turn up everywhere — opening up new perspectives and sometimes astonishing clarifications in the fields of comparative symbolism, religion, philology, ethnology, philosophy, psychology and art history by scholarship of the last several decades. — The tablets found at Amarna, Egypt; the Ugaritic tablets of the Phoenician or Canaanite peoples found at Ras Shamra; the Hurrian and Hittite songs recovered at Hattusa; etc., — all have combined to suggest a new image of the fundamental unity of humankind’s pre-history.
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Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891)
James George Frazer (1854-1941) David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930) Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) Clyde Kluckhohn (1905-1960) Theodor Gaster (1906-1992) Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) Cyrus H. Gordon (1908-2001) Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-2009) Charles Olson (1910-1970) William McNeil (1917-2016) Jonathan Z. Smith (1938-2017) Richard Heinberg (b. 1950) Joseph Mali (b. ?) |