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MythTerms

Page history last edited by AbneyMain 11 months, 2 weeks ago

e.g. (exemplī grātiā) = for example
monolithic = overly large and rigid; used of the various overarching approaches to myth, which tend to crush every bit of opposition
etiological (< aitia = reason, cause) = focusing on the origins of something, a custom, a practice, an animal, a natural phenomenon
c./ca. ("circā") = when we know the approximate, but not exact dates, more specific than the preceding term.
deification (Latin) and apotheosis (Greek) = the process or act of a human's becoming a god

deified = made into a god

hieros gamos ("sacred marriage") = the mythically recurring union of the sky god (or his representative) and the earth mother (or her representative)
ex nihilō ("from nothing") = with reference to traditions in which some creator god brings forth the universe out of nothing, in opposition to the Greco-Roman tradition, which begins with a preexistent, but ill defined, chaos.
magnum opus ("great work") = someone's masterpiece
dō ut dēs ("I give so that you give") = regarding Greek religion as a set of business transactions between the people and their gods (Jane Harrison)
apotropaic ("turning away evil") = regarding the purpose of Greek religion as originally to keep people save from evil spirits (Jane Harrison)
matriarchy ("rule by the mother") = social structure centered on women (Graves says this was the original power structure in Europe.)
patriarchy ("rule by the father") = social structure centered on men (Graves says this came later.)
coition = sexual intercourse
morphology ("study of form") = an approach to traditional tales focusing on the functions (actions) and roles (agents) beneath the surface while paying no attention to specific details (Propp)
i.e. (id est) = that is
ibid. (short for "ibidem," "in the same place") = a citation that comes from the same source as the citation immediately preceding it.
langue = the deep structure of language, common across the infinitely many surface utterances it generates (Lévi-Strauss says myths work like this; it is always possible to recognize any myth from any culture because of its underlying structure.)
parole = the surface utterances of languages that appear unique or different, but are simply transformations of an underlying structure (Lévi-Strauss says poetry works like this; it is unique and untranslatable.)
mytheme = a component element of a myth, perhaps even a meaningful name (Lévi-Strauss breaks myths down into mythemes and then considers how the elements relate to each other.)
diachronic ("through time") = following a story in chronological order (Lévi-Strauss)
synchronic (roughly, "at the same time") = examining all the elements of a story at once because what matters is their relationships to each other, not the order in which they occur (Lévi-Strauss)
dialectic (Hegel developed, used by Marx and Lévi-Strauss)

the ever-transforming triangle of thesis (proposal) and antithesis (counterproposal) that results in a synthesis

analogy = viewing how relationships between things are parallel, not the surface things themselves

big is to little as happy is to sad

autochthonous ("born from the earth") = many mythological beings spring spontaneously from the earth, which is a mytheme Lévi-Strauss finds significant in the myth of Oedipus
fl. ("flōruit") = s/he flourished (was active) around this broad time period, less specific than the term that follows.
deus ex machina ("god from the machine") = in stagecraft, the god(dess) was lowered onto stage via a crane to solve the dilemma that the characters could not otherwise figure out.
eponymous ("named after") = typically a place or a people named after an individual, as Romulus is the eponymous founder of Rome.
syncretism = aligning different belief traditions with each other, so that Greek Poseidon and Roman Neptune, originally different gods, were later said to be the same god.
anthropomorphic ("human formed") = Greco-Roman gods were typically perceived and depicted in human form, rather than as animals, "manimals," or monsters.
nekuia = journey to the land of the dead, although it most properly means summoning the dead in order to interact with them.
oracle = a place of prophecy, the prophecy itself, or the person issuing the prophecy
pyschopompos ("soul guide") = a being who brings the souls of the dead to the afterlife, such as Hermes.
petasus = a sun hat worn in Ancient Greece
talaria (Latin) = the winged sandals of Mercury
caduceus ("herald's staff") = the staff or rod carried by Hermes, often show entwined with two serpents and with wings at the top