myth

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Mythological figure, possibly Dionysus, riding a panther, a Hellenistic opus tessellatum emblema (credit: Dimitri Papadimos)

Traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the worldview of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon. Myths relate the events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basic to it. These events are set in a time altogether different from historical time, often at the beginning of creation or at an early stage of prehistory. A culture's myths are usually closely related to its religious beliefs and rituals. The modern study of myth arose with early 19th-century Romanticism. Wilhelm Mannhardt, James George Frazer, and others later employed a more comparative approach. Sigmund Freud viewed myth as an expression of repressed ideas, a view later expanded by Carl Gustav Jung in his theory of the collective unconscious and the mythical archetypes that arise out of it. Bronisaw Malinowski emphasized how myth fulfills common social functions, providing a model or charter for human behaviour. Claude Lvi-Strauss discerned underlying structures in the formal relations and patterns of myths throughout the world. Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Otto held that myth is to be understood solely as a religious phenomenon. Features of myth are shared by other kinds of literature. Origin tales explain the source or causes of various aspects of nature or human society and life. Fairy tales deal with extraordinary beings and events but lack the authority of myth. Sagas and epics claim authority and truth but reflect specific historical settings.

For more information on myth, visit Britannica.com.

noun

1. A traditional story or tale that has no proven factual basis: fable, legend. See belief/unbelief, real/imaginary, religion.
2. A body of traditional beliefs and notions accumulated about a particular subject: folklore, legend, lore, mythology, mythos, tradition. See knowledge/ignorance.
3. Any fictitious idea accepted as part of an ideology by an uncritical group; a received idea: creation, fantasy, fiction, figment, invention. See belief/unbelief, real/imaginary.

Definition: fictitious story
Antonyms: fact, non-fiction, truth

myth, a kind of story or rudimentary narrative sequence, normally traditional and anonymous, through which a given culture ratifies its social customs or accounts for the origins of human and natural phenomena, usually in supernatural or boldly imaginative terms. The term has a wide range of meanings, which can be divided roughly into ‘rationalist’ and ‘romantic’ versions: in the first, a myth is a false or unreliable story or belief

(adjective: mythical)

while in the second, ‘myth’ is a superior intuitive mode of cosmic understanding

adjective: mythic

In most literary contexts, the second kind of usage prevails, and myths are regarded as fictional stories containing deeper truths, expressing collective attitudes to fundamental matters of life, death, divinity, and existence (sometimes deemed to be ‘universal’). Myths are usually distinguished from legends in that they have less of an historical basis, although they seem to have a similar mode of existence in oral transmission, re‐telling, literary adaptation, and allusion. A mythology is a body of related myths shared by members of a given people or religion, or sometimes a system of myths evolved by an individual writer, as in the ‘personal mythologies’ of William Blake and W. B. Yeats; the term has sometimes also been used to denote the study of myths.

Verb: mythicize or mythologize.

See also archetype, myth criticism, mythopoeia. For a fuller account, consult Laurence Coupe, Myth (1997).

Quotes:

"Myth is neither a lie nor a confession: it is an inflexion." - Roland Barthes

"Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get there. Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words." - Italo Calvino

"Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths." - Joseph Campbell

"It is a myth, not a mandate, a fable not a logic, and symbol rather than a reason by which men are moved." - Irwin Edman

"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes." - James Feibleman

"There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to realize myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have succeeded, this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is realizable. Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is." - Eugene Ionesco

See more famous quotes about Myth

• Schools, Styles, and Forms - myth: legend or traditional narrative, often based in part on historical events, that reveals human behavior and natural phenomena by its symbolism
• Intuition and Imagination - myth: fanciful, usu. traditional, imaginary tale serving as basis for commonly held belief
• Myths, Legends, and Fables - myth: tale or traditional narrative that describes adventures of gods and legendary heroes, and reveals human behavior and natural phenomena through its symbolism

Dansk (Danish)
n. - myte, legende, gudesagn

Nederlands (Dutch)
mythe, allegorie, verzinsel, mythologie

Français (French)
n. - mythe, mythologie

Deutsch (German)
n. - Mythos, Gerücht

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - μύθος, θρύλος

Italiano (Italian)
mito

Português (Portuguese)
n. - mito (m)

Русский (Russian)
миф

Español (Spanish)
n. - mito

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - myt, myter

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
神话, 虚构的人, 虚构的事

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 神話, 虛構的人, 虛構的事

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 신화, 지은 이야기

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 神話, 作り話, 架空のもの

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) خرافه, أسطورة‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מיתוס, אגדה, דבר בדוי‬

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