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Mythème

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[[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] defines the [[mytheme]] as the '''smallest, most succinct element of [[signification]] in a [[myth]]'''. The [[mytheme]] grounds his [[structuralism|structuralist approach]] to [[wp:myth|myth criticism]], his [[structuralism|structural analysis]] of [[wp:myth|myths]].<ref>(cf. in particular «The Structural Study of Myth» (1955); Tristes tropiques (1955); Anthropologie structurale (1958); La pensée sauvage (1962); Les mythologiques, 4 vols. (1964-1971); and Anthropologie structurale deux (1973)).</ref>
==WikipediaStructuralism==In the study of 1950s [[wp:mythology|mythologyClaude Lévi-Strauss]]first adapted this technique of language analysis to analytic myth criticism. In his work on the myth systems of primitive tribes, a working from the analogy of language structure, he adopted the term ''mythème'mytheme''' is an irreducible nugget of myth, an unchanging element, not unlike a cultural meme, one with the assertion that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways&mdash;"bundled" was [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]]'s image&mdash; or linked in more complicated relationships, like a molecule in a compound. For example, the myths system of [[wp:Adonis|Adonis]] and [[wp:Osiris|Osiris]] share several elements, leading some scholars to conclude meaning within mythic utterances parallels closely that they share of a sourcelanguage system.
 
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The cataloguer of folk tales [[Vladimir Propp]] considered that the unit of analysis was the individual tale: the unitary mytheme by contrast is the equivalent in myth of the [[wp:phoneme]]s, [[wp:morpheme]]s and [[wp:sememe]]s into which [[Linguistics|structural linguistics]] divides language: the smallest possible units of meaning within a language system.
 
Like [[Saussure]]'s [[sign]]s, [[mytheme]] are created by binary or ternary oppositions and are analogous with the functions identified by [[Propp]] in his morphology of the folk tale. [[Mytheme]]s are to be identified with functions, and not with the characters of mythical tales.
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In the 1950s [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] first adapted this technique of language analysis to analytic myth criticism. In his work on the myth systems of primitive tribes, working from the analogy of language structure, he adopted the term ''mythème'', with the assertion that the system of meaning within mythic utterances parallels closely that of a language system.
This idea is somewhat disputed by [[Roman Jakobson]], who takes the mytheme to be a [[wp:concept|concept]] or phoneme which is without significance in itself but whose significance might be shown by [[wp:sociology|sociological]] analysis.<ref>*Claude Lévi-Strauss, 1955. "The Structural study of myth" in ''Journal of American Folklore'', '''68''' pp 428-444</ref>
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