MYTHINKINGS PT. 6

“It is the charm of mythic narrative that it cannot tell one thing without telling a hundred others. The symbols are an endless inter-marrying family. They give life to what, stated in general terms, appears only a cold truism, by hinting how the apparent simplicity of the statement is due to an artificial isolation of a fragment, which, in its natural place, is connected with all the infinity of truths by living fibres.”-- William Butler Yeats.

Though in Part 5 I allowed that there were attractions to Joseph Campbell's "supernormal stimuli" theory of myth, it didn't offer a sufficient basis for an "essentialist" definition of myth.  If anything Campbell's theory would seem to be more applicable to the general concept of "fantasy," as a way of potentially explaining why human beings are widely (though not universally) attracted to images that go beyond the boundaries of consensual experience.

Myths as defined in the functionalist sense almost always contain fantasy.  Myths belonging to the ritual or religious category impart a sacramental quality to either the world as a whole or some aspect of the creative whole (the Hindu rituals relating to the Soma-drink, for example).  To achieve that sacramental quality, myths dominantly invoke larger-than-life fantasy-creations like Campbell's angels, gods, and dragons in order to explain how sacred presences gave rise to the world or to some part of the world.

However, an essentialist idea of myth would not necessarily be limited to overt fantasies.  If the "myth-essence" can appear in literature as well as in religious myths, must we believe that it appears only in overtly fantastic literary works?

By this standard, the only works of a poet like the above-cited William Butler Yeats that would possess the "myth-essence" would be those that seem to depict worlds of fantasy, ranging from early works like the narrative poem "The Wanderings of Oisin" to somewhat more metaphorical fantasy-worlds like those of "Sailing to Byzantium" or "The Second Coming."

But if one continues to define the "myth-essence" in terms of inspiring "excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration," then I would say that it appears irrespective of overt fantasy-material.  Here's an example of Yeats finding mythic import in the drab facts of life, in his "Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop."


 'But Love has pitched his mansion in
The place of excrement;
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.'  

I think that we are closer to the essence of myth when we regard it as a continuous elaboration of symbolic interactions; Yeats' "endless inter-marrying family."  As such, this symbolic complexity can appear not only in religious myths, but also in folktales and fairytales, in literary works like the poems of Yeats, and even in popular culture.  At times this complexity may even explain why some pop-cultural works succeed with their audience over several generations, much as popular folktales like "Red Riding Hood" succeed thanks to the symbolic issues they address.

MYTHINKINGS, PT. 5

Once more, that useful Wiktionary definiton of "myth:"

a person or thing held in excessive or quasi-religious awe or admiration based on popular legend
 

I've connected the idea of an "essentialist" defintion of myth-- one that can extend across the whole of art, religion and literature-- with this state of "awe or admiration."  But the definition by itself is vague.  As individuals we're all aware of physical experiences (like food) or emotional ties (as with family) that can make us "happy."  But how do we explain the emotion of being awestruck, which is often much less focused on immediate gratification?

Joseph Campbell, borrowing from ethology, explained mankind's capacity for awe with the concept of the "supernormal stimulus."  In PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGY he writes:

A suggestive analogy is to be seen in the case of the grayling moth, which prefers darker mates to those actually offered by its present species. For if human art can offer to a moth the supernormal sign stimulus to which it responds more eagerly than to the normal offerings of life, it can surely supply supernormal stimuli, also to the IRMs [Innate Releasing Mechanisms] of man and not only spontaneously, in dream and nightmare, but even more brilliantly in the contrived folktales, fairy tales, mythological landscapes, over- and underworlds, temples and cathedrals, pagodas and gardens, dragons, angels, gods, and guardians of popular and religious art. It is true, of course, that the culturally developed formulations of these wonders have required in many cases centuries, even milleniums, to complete. But it is true also . . . that there is a kind of support for the reception of such images in the deja vu of the partially self-shaped and self-shaping mind.
 

Here Campbell is attempting to ground mankind's tendencies to "mythify" experience as an instinctive faculty.  The idea is certainly preferable to the tendency of positivist intellectuals to dismiss myth and fantasy as delusions.  However, it's hard to speak of myth as purely instinctual in nature, given that it results from mankind attempting to move beyond the range of affects that are normally pleasurable, such as eating good foods or consorting with one's family.  Even many of ethology's examples of animals transcending their instinctive programming result from experiments conceived by man, a symbol-using animal species, and performed upon creatures who do not (so far as we can tell) live within a symbolic universe.

On top of that, Campbell's list is a disorganized hodgepodge.  Are all "pagodas and gardens" capable of exciting the supernormal stimulus, or do only some of them qualify as "wonders?"  If it's only some rather than all, then what sets the special pagodas and gardens apart from the others?

Campbell is perhaps on more solid ground speaking of specific mythological creations like "mythological landscapes," dragons, angels, and gods.  But of course one can object that not every single human responds to these "sign stimuli."  Even within polytheistic cultures like that of Greece, it should go without saying that a worshipper of Dionysus did not necessarily esteem Dionysus' opposite number Apollo.

So though instinctive drives may play a role, we're clearly dealing with a phenomenon which may be grounded in subconscious impulses but which has been channeled by conscious symbolic manipulation.  I'm reminded of Jung's careful distinction in PSYCHOLOGICAL TYPES, where he notes that although the archetypes of the collective unconscious may be considered *homogeneous,* in that they can appear in any human culture, the conscious minds of all humans are *heterogeneous,* meaning that they can transform the archetypes into endless culturally determined variations-- none of which are automatically able to inspire every single subject with awe or admiration.  Campbell, it seems, was not quite so careful in considering how the emotions associated with myth are promulgated.

More to come.