mythological school. Scientific schools and their role and the development of folklore

mythological school(M. sh.) - a scientific direction in folklore and literary criticism, which arose in the era of European romanticism. M. sh. should not be identified with the science of mythology, with mythological. theories. Although M. sh. She also dealt with mythology itself, but the latter acquired universal significance in its theoretical constructions as a source of national culture and was involved in explaining the origin and meaning of the phenomena of folklore. Philosopher. base M. sh. - the aesthetics of romanticism F. Schelling and br. A. and F. Schlegel. At the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XIX centuries. special studies appear: “A Guide to Mythology” (1787-95) by the rationalist H. G. Heine, “Symbolism and Mythology of Ancient Peoples ...” (1810-12) by the idealist G. F. Kreutzer, etc. Mystical-symbolic interpretation of myths Kreutzer was criticized by scientists (G. Herman, I. G. Foss, and others) and the poet G. Heine in the Romantic School.

The idealistic tendencies in the study of myths were theoretically generalized by Schelling. According to Schelling, myth was the prototype of poetry, from which philosophy and science then arose. In The Philosophy of Art (1802-03), he argued that "mythology is a necessary condition and primary material for any art" (op. cit., Moscow, 1966, p. 105). The most complete theory of mythology as a "natural religion" is presented by Schelling in lectures 1845-46. Similar thoughts were expressed by F. Schlegel. In the "Fragments" of 1797-98, he wrote: "The core, the center of poetry should be sought in mythology and in the ancient mysteries" (Literary Theory of German Romanticism, 1934, p. 182); according to Schlegel, the revival of art is possible only on the basis of myth-making, the mythology of the ancient Germans and the German folk poetry born by it (History of Ancient and Modern Literature, 1815) should become the source of German national culture. These ideas were also developed by A. Schlegel; V. and J. Grimm, whose names are associated with the final design of M. sh. Br. Grimm combined some of the folklore ideas of the Heidelbergers with the mythology of Schelling-Schlegel. They believed that folk poetry was of "divine origin"; a fairy tale, an epic, a legend, etc. arose from a myth in the process of its evolution; folklore is the unconscious and impersonal creativity of the collective people. souls. Transferring the methodology of comparative linguistics to the study of folklore, the Grimms erected similar phenomena in the field of folklore of different peoples to their common ancient mythology, to a kind of "pramith" (by analogy with the "proto-language"). In their opinion, the original mythological traditions are especially well preserved in German folk poetry. The views of the Grimms are theoretically summarized in their book German Mythology (1835).

Adherents of M. sh. were: A. Kuhn, W. Schwartz, W. Manhardt (Germany), M. Muller, J. Cox (England), A. de Gubernatis (Italy), A. Pictet (Switzerland), M. Breal (France), A. N. Afanasiev, F. I. Buslaev, O. F. Miller (Russia). In M. sh. two main directions can be distinguished: etymological (linguistic reconstruction of a myth) and analogous (comparison of myths similar in content). A. Kuhn in his works "The Descent of Fire and the Divine Drink" (1859) and "On the Stages of Myth Formation" (1873) interpreted mythological images by semantic convergence of names with Sanskrit words. He attracted to the comparative study of the "Veda", which was also carried out by M. Müller in "Experiments in Comparative Mythology" (1856) and in "Readings on the Science of Language" (1861-64). Müller developed a methodology of linguistic paleontology, which was most fully expressed in his two-volume Contribution to the Science of Mythology (1897). Kuhn and Muller sought to recreate the most ancient mythology, establishing similarities in the names of mythological images of different Indo-European peoples, reducing the content of myths to the deification of natural phenomena - luminaries ("solar theory" Muller), thunderstorms, etc. ("meteorological theory" Kuhn). The principles of the linguistic study of mythology were originally applied by F. Buslaev in the works of the 1840-50s. (collected in the book "Historical essays on Russian folk literature and art", vol. 1-2, 1861). Sharing the general theory of M. sh., Buslaev believed that all genres of folklore arose in the “epic period” from myth, and erected, for example, epic images to mythological tales about the origin of rivers (Danube), about giants living in the mountains (Svyatogor) , etc. The extreme expression of the solar-meteorological theory received in the work of O. Miller "Ilya Muromets and the Kiev Bogatyrdom" (1869). A. A. Potebnya, who partly shared the views of M. sh., considered speech “... the main and primitive instrument of mythical thinking” (“From Notes on the Theory of Literature”, X., 1905, p. 589) and searched for in folk poetry traces of this thinking, but denied Muller's theory of the "disease of language" as a source of mythological images.

On the basis of the "analogous" study of myths, various theories arose. So, W. Schwartz and W. Manhardt derived myths not from the deification of celestial phenomena, but from the worship of "lower" demonic beings (demonological, or naturalistic theory), in connection with which they associated folklore with "lower mythology" (see. " The origin of mythology...", 1860, "Poetic views on the nature of the Greeks, Romans and Germans...", 1864-79, W. Schwartz, "Demons of Rye", 1868, "Forest and field crops", 1875-77, "Mythological Studies", 1884, W. Manhardt). A peculiar synthesis of various theories of M. sh. was the work “Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature” (vols. 1-3, 1866-69) by A. N. Afanasyev, who, along with Buslaev, for the first time in Russia applied the principles of M. sh. to the study of folklore ("Grandfather Brownie", 1850, "Vedun and Witch", 1851, etc.). Tribute to M. sh. given in early works by A. N. Pypin (“On Russian Folk Tales”, 1856) and A. N. Veselovsky (“Notes and Doubts on the Comparative Study of the Medieval Epos”, 1868; “Comparative Mythology and Its Method”, 1873), moreover, the latter introduced the idea of ​​historicism into the understanding of mythology and its relationship with folklore. Subsequently, Buslaev, Pypin and Veselovsky criticized the concept of M. sh.

The methodology and conclusions of M. sh., based on an idealistic understanding of mythology and an exaggeration of its role in the history of art, were not accepted by the subsequent development of science, but at one time M. sh. played an important role, contributing to the active study of folklore and substantiation of the nationality of art. M. sh. laid the foundations of comparative mythology and folklore and posed a number of significant theoretical problems.

In the twentieth century a “neomythological” theory arose, based on the teachings of the Swiss. psychologist K. Jung about "archetypes" - products of "impersonal collective unconscious" creativity of primitive mankind, possessing a demonic or magical nature. According to Jung, “the well-known expression of the archetype is a myth and a fairy tale ... here it appears in a specifically minted form” (“Von den Wurzeln des Bewusstseins. Studien über den Archetypus”, Z., 1954, S. 5-6). "Neomythologists" reduce folklore images, as well as many others. plots and images of the new literature to the symbolically rethought "archetypes" of ancient myths, and mythology is considered an explanation of the magical rite and identified with religion. The largest representatives of "neomythologism" in folklore: the French J. Dumezil and C. Otran, the Englishman F. Raglan, the Dutchman Jan de Vries, the Americans R. Carpenter and J. Campbell and others. bourgeois literature (F. Wheelwright, R. Chase, W. Douglas, etc.).

mythopoetics- an influential scientific trend that developed in the second half of the 20th century in Western literary criticism.

Mythopoetics is based on the idea of ​​myth as the most important factor for understanding the nature of artistic creativity. Within the framework of mythopoetics, myth is considered not only as a historically conditioned source of artistic creativity, but also as “a transhistorical generator of literature, keeping it within certain mythocentric frameworks” (Western literary criticism of the 20th century. - P. 258). The formation of mythopoetics is associated, on the one hand, with the growing interest in myth in various fields of humanitarian knowledge since the beginning of the 20th century: ethnology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, cultural studies. On the other hand, with the appearance of “mythocentric” works within the framework of modernism (novels by T. Mann, D. Joyce, F. Kafka, A. Bely).

In European science, myth has been the subject of study since the beginning of the 18th century. The Italian scientist G. Vico, author of The Foundations of a New Science of the General Nature of Nations, created the first serious philosophy of myth. Representing the history of civilization as a cyclical process, Vico, in particular, raises the question of the connection between early heroic poetry and mythology. Mythology, according to the scientist, is associated with specific forms of thinking, comparable to child psychology. Such thinking is characterized by sensual concreteness, emotionality and richness of imagination in the absence of rationality, the transfer of one's own properties to the objects of the surrounding world, the personification of generic categories, etc. Viko's statements about the mythological nature of poetic tropes are of considerable interest. Vico believes that “all the tropes ... hitherto considered the ingenious inventions of writers, were a necessary way of expressing all the first poetic nations and that at their first appearance they had their true meaning. But since, along with the development of the human mind, words were found denoting abstract forms or generic concepts, embracing their species or connecting their parts to the whole, then such ways of expressing the first peoples became transfers.

At the turn of the XVIII - XIX centuries. a romantic philosophy of myth takes shape. In the works of German romantics (F. Schelling, I. Herder, J. Grimm, the Schlegel brothers), myth is understood not as an absurd fiction, but as an expression of the ability of an ancient person to holistically perceive and artistically model the world. An outstanding role here, of course, belongs to F.V. Schelling, who in his "Philosophy of Art" systematically expounded the romantic philosophy of myth. Schelling considers mythology as "a necessary condition and primary material for all art." “Mythology,” writes the philosopher, “is nothing but the universe in a more solemn attire, in its absolute form, the true universe in itself, a way of life and full of miracles of chaos in divine image-creation, which is already poetry in itself and yet for itself at the same time the material and element of poetry. She (mythology) is the world and, so to speak, the soil on which alone works of art can flourish and grow. Only within the limits of such a world are stable and definite images possible, through which only eternal concepts can receive expression. Schelling pays special attention to the symbolism of myth, contrasting it (symbolism) with schematism and allegory. If schematism is characterized by the representation of the special through the general, for allegory - the general through the special, then these two forms of imagination are synthesized in the symbol, and the general and the special, according to the German philosopher, are indistinguishable in the symbol. Symbolism, thus, acts as a principle for the construction of mythology.

In the second half of the 19th century, an anthropological school was formed in England (E. Taylor, E. Lang). Archaic tribes in comparison with civilized mankind become the material for the study of the anthropological school. In particular, E. Taylor, the author of "Primitive Culture", connects the emergence of mythology with animism, the idea of ​​the soul that arose as a result of observations and reflections of the "savage" about death, illness, dreams. It is noteworthy that Taylor points out the rational nature of these reflections, i.e. mythology, according to Taylor, is the result of the rational, rational activity of primitive man.

The growth of scientific interest in myth at the beginning of the 20th century was largely predetermined by the transitional nature of the era itself, which began at the turn of the century with the crisis of the philosophy of positivism and the formation of the so-called “philosophy of life” (F. Nietzsche, O. Spengler, A. Toynbee, A. Bergson) . Overcoming the positivist view of myth is already found in the work of the German philosopher Fr. Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872), which had a significant impact on the entire European culture at the turn of the century. Considering Greek mythology and tragedy, Nietzsche singles out two principles in them - "Apollonic" and "Dionysian". In tragedy, Nietzsche sees a synthesis of Apollonism and Dionysianism, since the musicality of Dionysianism in ancient Greek tragedies is resolved in the plastic, pictorial images of Apollonism. Nietzsche brings mythology closer to an irrational, chaotic beginning.

A significant role in the "remythologization" in the culture of the early 20th century belongs to the German composer R. Wagner, the author of the musical tetralogy "Ring of the Nibelung". According to Wagner, myth lies at the foundation of art. Greek tragedy grew out of the myth, which for the composer remained a model for modern drama, synthesizing music and words. Myth in Wagner is contrasted with history as a substantial beginning to a temporary, conditional beginning.

"Remythologization" in the culture and philosophy of the early 20th century became a kind of impulse for the emergence of various scientific approaches to the study of myth. Among the theories of myth that have developed in the past century in various humanities, ritualism, symbolic theory, analytical psychology, a structuralist approach, and a ritual-mythological direction stand out.

A significant contribution to the study of myth was made by the so-called ritual school, the founder of which is considered to be James George Fraser, who in his research (Frazer was best known for the monumental work The Golden Bough) put forward and substantiated the ritual nature of myths. Of particular interest is the mythologeme discovered by Fraser of the periodically killed and replaced king-sorcerer, who is magically responsible for the harvest and tribal well-being. Fraser, who has reconstructed this mythology with the help of ethnographic facts of various origins, interprets it in the context of the rituals of dying and resurrecting gods, the sacred wedding, and more archaic initiation rituals.

Under the influence of Fraser's ideas, the so-called "Cambridge school" arose, to which belonged Jane Harrison, F.M. Cornford, A.B. Cook, Gilbert Murray and other scientists, who proceeded in their research from the priority of ritual over myth and saw rituals as the most important source for the development of mythology, religion, philosophy, and art of the ancient world.

The sociological direction in the study of myth is represented in the theories of E. Durkheim and L. Levy-Bruhl. Levy-Bruhl raised the question of the qualitative difference between primitive thinking and its prelogical character. The main concept in the Levy-Bruhl concept is the concept of "collective representations", which do not have logical features and properties. The prelogism of mythological thinking, in particular, is manifested in non-observance of the logical law of the “excluded middle”: objects can simultaneously be themselves and something else; there is no desire to avoid contradiction, and therefore the opposition of the unit and the multitude, the static and the dynamic, is of secondary importance. In "collective representations" the law of participation (participation) is found: between the totemic group and the country of the world, between the country of the world and flowers, mythical animals, etc. Space in mythology is understood as heterogeneous, each part of it is involved in what is in it. Time in mythological thinking is also heterogeneous. As for causality, at any given moment only one of its links is perceived, the other is related to the world of invisible forces. According to Levy-Bruhl, in mythological thinking, certain properties are not separated from individual objects, number is not separated from the countable, different numbers can be equated due to their mystical meaning.

K. Levi-Strauss made a significant contribution to the study of mythological thinking. One of the founders of structuralism, K. Levi-Strauss, in his research reveals the structure of mythological thinking. According to the scientist, who originally expounded it in The Thinking of the Savages (1962), this thinking, for all its concreteness and reliance on direct sensations, has a logic, which the author defines as the logic of bricolage (from the French bricoler - to play with a rebound). Associated with natural sensory images, the elements of mythological thinking are a kind of intermediary between the image and the concept. Elements of mythological thinking can act as a sign and coexist in a sign with an idea. It is in the sign, according to K. Levi-Strauss, that the opposition between the sensual and the speculative is overcome. At the same time, the sign does not create something completely new, it can be extracted from the wreckage of one system to create another and acts as a reorganization operator (logic of the kaleidoscope type). Hence the binarity of mythological thinking (oppositions like high/low, sky/earth, day/night, right/left, husband/wife), which consists in the fact that specific classifiers are duplicated at different levels and correlate with more abstract (numerical, etc.) ).

K. Levi-Strauss points to the metaphorism of mythological thinking, however, despite the fact that the disclosure of meaning in myth has the character of endless transformations, mythical thought brings the metaphor to intelligibility and is able to open unconscious mental structures. In this regard, the reasoning of K. Levi-Strauss in "Mythological" about the comparison of myth with art seems interesting. The scientist brings together music and myth, opposing them to painting. Music and myth, according to K. Levi-Strauss, are metaphorical, while painting is metonymic. “In terms of “nature” and “culture”, Levi-Strauss expresses the idea of ​​the reasons for the fundamental figurativeness of painting and that abstract painting changes the specifics of painting as an art form to the same extent that concrete music violates the specifics of music. The fact is that musical sounds are the property of culture (in nature - only noises), and colors exist in nature. From this follows the obligatory objectivity of painting and the freedom of music from representative connections. Levi-Strauss separates the "external" content of music (an unlimited series of physically realizable sounds, from which various musical systems isolate their hierarchies of sounds in scales) and the "internal" content, correlated with the physiological "natural lattice" ("internal" content is associated with psycho-physiological time listener, with organic rhythms). In music, the relationship of "sender" and "receiver" is reversed in the sense that the latter is indicated through the message of the former. The listener, as it were, turns out to be a performer of an orchestra conducted by the piece of music itself: music lives in him, and he listens to himself through music, while approaching unconscious mental structures, in the knowledge of which Levi-Strauss sees the ultimate goal of his research.

According to Levi-Strauss, myth stands in the middle between language and music. Myth, like music, comes from a double content and two levels of articulation. The musical series of physically realizable sounds from which the scales are composed corresponds to the mythological series of "historical" events, from among which (in principle unlimited) each mythology, as it were, makes its choice. Myth is also a "time destruction machine", overcoming the antinomy of continuous time and discrete structure. The myth organizes the psychological time of the listener with the help of the changing length of the narrative, repetitions, parallelisms, and so on. In myth, the sender-receiver relationship is also reversed, and the listener acts as the signified... Myths, like music, quite closely reproduce unconscious general mental structures.

The stated theories of myth, which have developed in various humanities, have influenced the formation of literary approaches to the study of myth in literature, among which, in particular, the ritual-mythological school stands out, reaching its heyday in the 1950s. The theoretical basis of the ritual-mythological school was ritualism and the theory of archetypes by K.G. Cabin boy. The ritual-mythological school, in contrast to the culturological ritualism of Fraser's students, was not limited to the analysis of archaic monuments, one way or another directly related to the ritual-folklore-mythological tradition, i.e. went beyond the limits in which it was possible to raise the question of a direct genesis from ritual and mythological roots. Dante, Milton and Blake attracted much attention of ritual and mythological criticism, due to the fact that their work directly operates with motives and images of biblical Christian mythology. In addition to these authors, representatives of this trend were interested in writers whose work manifests a conscious attitude towards myth-making: T. Mann, F. Kafka, D. Joyce, W. Faulkner and others. Among scientists belonging to the ritual-mythological school - M Bodkin, N. Fry, F. Wheelwright, W. Troy, R. Chase.

Maud Bodkin, author of Archetypes in Poetry (1934), is interested in emotional-psychological models of literary genres and images. Comparing the images of the storm, moon, night, sea, sky, etc., in Coleridge's "The Poem of the Old Sailor" with similar images in other poets, in particular, in the Belgian poet Verharn and in religious texts, the researcher discovers a commonality in them conditioned, in her opinion, by the subordination of the individual experience of poets of transpersonal life to the universal rhythm. Repetitive phases in the life of man and nature, according to M. Bodkin, can be symbolized by images of celestial views - mountains, gardens and flowering bushes of earthly paradise, or, conversely, gloomy caves and abysses. The researcher focuses on the temporal and spatial forms of archetypal images, paying special attention to the symbols of the transition from death to life associated with initiation rites and related myths.

According to N. Fry, author of Anatomy of Criticism (1957), poetic rhythms are closely connected with the natural cycle through the synchronization of the body with natural rhythms, for example, with the solar year: dawn and spring are the basis of myths about the birth of a hero, his resurrection and the death of darkness (this is the archetype of dithyrambic poetry). Zenith, summer, marriage, triumph give rise to myths of apotheosis, sacred wedding, paradise (the archetype of comedy, idyll, romance). Sunset, autumn, death lead to the myths of the flood, chaos and the end of the world (the archetype of satire). Spring, summer, autumn, winter, respectively, give rise to comedy, chivalric romance, tragedy and irony.

mythopoetics as a direction in literary criticism, using the theoretical provisions of a number of schools for the study of myth (the teachings of C. G. Jung, the concepts of Levy-Bruhl and K. Levi-Strauss), focuses its efforts on identifying deep layers in texts that go back to the mythological archaic. These layers appear, as it were, independently of the author's will and take the work beyond the framework of the individual, socially typical, and epochal. The existence of such layers is explained, in the words of V.N. Toporov, the existence of a “psychophysiological substratum of a person”, which is “deeply connected with the “cosmic” as a sphere of interpretation of the “psychophysiological” (to the connection of micro- and macrocosmos)”. “In relation to this category of cases,” continues V.N. Toporov, - we can talk about the presence of a long-range relationship between the psychophysiological level and the poetics of the text, which implements this relationship and thus additionally testifies to it. Mythopoetic analysis in this regard, it involves identifying in the semantic structure of the text not only the realization of the author’s individual settings, but also universal, permanent features of human consciousness. Such universals should reveal themselves at different levels of the artistic structure of the work, but above all, at those that have a world-modeling function to a greater extent. In this regard, the analysis of the chronotope of a work is of particular importance, since the categories of space and time are fundamental in building a picture of the world.

mythological school

direction in folklore and literary criticism of the 19th century, which arose in the era of romanticism. Its philosophical basis is the aesthetics of F. W. Schelling and the brothers A. and F. Schlegel, who perceived mythology (See Mythology) as a "natural religion." For M. sh. characteristic is the idea of ​​mythology as a “necessary condition and primary material for any art” (Schelling), as a “core, center of poetry” (F. Schlegel). The thoughts of Schelling and F. Schlegel that the revival of national art is possible only if artists turn to mythology were developed by A. Schlegel and developed the Heidelberg romances in relation to folklore (L. Arnim, C. Brentano, I. Görres). Finally M. sh. took shape in the writings of the brothers V. and J. Grimm (“German Mythology”, 1835). According to their theory, folk poetry is of "divine origin"; a fairy tale, an epic song, a legend and other genres arose from the myth in the process of its evolution; folklore is the unconscious and impersonal creativity of the "people's soul". Using the method of comparative study, the Grimm brothers explained similar phenomena in the folklore of different peoples by their common ancient mythology. M. sh. spread in many European countries: Germany (A. Kuhn, W. Schwarz. W. Manhardt), England (M. Muller, J. Cox), Italy (A. de Gubernatis), France (M. Breal), Switzerland (A Pictet), Russia (A. N. Afanasiev, F. I. Buslaev, O. F. Miller). M. sh. developed in two main directions: "etymological" (linguistic reconstruction of the initial meaning of the myth) and "analogous" (comparison of myths similar in content). The first is represented by the works of Kuhn (The Descent of Fire and the Divine Drink, 1859; On the Stages of Myth Formation, 1873) and Muller (Experiments in Comparative Mythology, 1856; Readings on Science and Language, 1862-64). Using the "paleolinguistic" method, Kuhn and Muller sought to reconstruct ancient mythology, explaining the content of myths by the deification of natural phenomena - luminaries ("solar theory" Muller) or thunderstorms ("meteorological theory" Kuhn). In Russia, the principles of the "etymological" study of myths were originally developed by F. I. Buslaev ("Historical essays on Russian folk literature and art", 1861). He raised the heroes of epics to myths about the origin of rivers (“Danube”), about giants living in the mountains (“Svyatogor”), etc. 1869). Within the "analogous" direction, the "demonological" or "naturalistic" theory of Schwartz ("The Origin of Mythology", 1860) and Manhardt ("Demons of Rye", 1868; "Forest and Field Cultures", 1875-77; "Mythological Studies , 1884), who explained the origin of myths by the worship of "lower" demonic beings. A peculiar synthesis of various theories of M. sh. - "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" (1866-69) A. N. Afanasiev a. Principles of M. sh. appeared in the early works of A. N. Pypin (“On Russian Folk Tales”, 1856), A. N. Veselovsky (“Comparative Mythology and Its Method”, 1873). Methodology and a number of theoretical conclusions M. sh. rejected by the subsequent development of science (including representatives of the migration theory (See Migration theory) and former "mythologists" - Buslaev, Veselovsky). However, M. sh. played an important role in the development of science: expanded ideas about mythology, turning, along with ancient myths, to the myths of the ancient Indians, Iranians, Germans, Celts, Slavs; contributed to the active collection of folklore of different peoples, posed a number of important theoretical problems (including the problem of the nationality of art); laid the foundations for the comparative study of mythology, folklore, and literature (see Comparative Historical Literary Studies). Critically evaluating the exaggeration of M. sh. the role of mythology in the history of art, the directions that came to replace it continued to study the problem of the “mythologism” of folklore and literature, using the extensive materials obtained by it. For neomythologism, see Ritual-mythological school.

Lit.: Sokolov Yu. M., Russian folklore, M., 1941; Azadovsky M.K., History of Russian folklore, vol. 2, M., 1963; Gusev V. E., Problems of folklore in the history of aesthetics, M. - L., 1963; Meletinsky E. M., The origin of the heroic epic, M., 1963 (introduction),

V. E. Gusev.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

direction to bourgeois historiography of the original Christianity, which set itself the task of proving that Evang. the story of Jesus Christ is a myth. There are 3 periods in the history of the development of this school. 1st is associated with the names of the French. scientists S. Dupyun and K. Volnay, who created the astral theory of the origin of myths, according to which myths are the personifications of animate and inanimate nature, and Christ is an allegory of the sun. The 2nd period includes German. Young Hegelian? Bauer, representatives of the Dutch. radical school: A. Gukstra, A. Pearson, A. D. Loman, G. Bolland. Revealing the inconsistency of the gospels, B. Bauer interprets them as fictions, that is, conscious. fiction persons. He did a lot to clarify the ideological premises of Christianity. The 3rd period in the development of the school refers to the beginning. 20th century and is associated with the names of J. M. Robertson, T. Whittaker, who developed the pre-Christ hypothesis. the cult of Jesus (Yeshua), A. Nemoevsky, E. Moutier-Rousse, P. L. Kushu, W. B. Smith, A. Drews. The latter studied Gnosticism as the source of Christianity. They made a great contribution to the study of the origin of Christianity, but, being idealists, they did not reveal the socio-economic. reasons for the emergence of Christianity and could not fully debunk the myth of Christ.

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MYTHOLOGICAL SCHOOL

scientific direction in folklore and literary criticism of the 19th century, which arose in the era of romanticism. The philosophical basis for M.Sh. the aesthetics of the romantics Schelling and the brothers A. and F. Schlegel served. For them, myth was the prototype of poetry, from which science and philosophy then developed, and mythology was the primary material for any art, in it one should look for the "core, center of poetry." The revival of art is possible, according to the teachings of M.Sh., only on the basis of myth-making. Subsequently, these ideas were developed by the brothers V and J. Grimm, with whose names in the 20-30s of the 19th century. connected with the final design of M.Sh. Mythology, according to the Brothers Grimm, is a form of primitive thinking, "unconsciously creating spirit", a means of man's explanation of the world around him. Supporters of M.Sh. were A. Kuhn, V. Schwartz - in Germany, M. Muller - in England, M. Breal - in France, A.N. Afanasiev, F.N. Buslaev, O.F. Miller is in Russia. M.Sh. in Europe it developed in two directions: etymological (linguistic reconstruction of a myth) and analogous (comparison of myths similar in content). Representatives of the first direction (A. Kuhn, M. Muller) explained the origin of myths by the "solar theory" (M. Muller), the essence of which was that the deification of the sun and luminaries was considered a prerequisite for the emergence of myths, and by "meteorological theory" (A. Kuhn), when the root cause of myths was seen in the deified forces of nature: wind, lightning, thunder, storm, whirlwind. F.I. was an adherent of the "etymological" trend in Russia. Buslaev, who believed that all genres of folklore arose from myth. The "analytical" concept was adhered to by W. Schwartz and W. Manhardt, who saw the root cause of myths in the worship of "lower" demonic beings. The views of M.Sh. schools partly shared A.A. Potebnya, A.N. Pypin, synthesis of various theories by M.Sh. observed in A.N. Afanasiev. The mythological direction in the process of development was enriched by the theory of literary borrowing, the theory of euhemerism (mythological deities arose as a result of the deification of great people by man), anthropological theory (the theory of spontaneous generation of mythological plots). Such a variety of concepts weakened the effectiveness of the mythological approach to the works of ancient literature. As a result, a need arose for a certain unifying principle, which was the principle of comparative historical study of works of ancient Russian literature and folklore. Thus, in the process of development of M.Sh. a school of comparative mythology is being formed (A.N. Afanasiev, O. F. Miller, A.A. Kotlyarevsky). The merit of the representatives of this branch lies primarily in the fact that they collected and studied the huge poetic heritage of the Russian people, made it the subject of a worldwide study, laid the foundations for a comparative study of mythology, folklore and literature. A significant drawback of M.Sh. there was a desire to find a "mythological" analogue to any, the most insignificant phenomenon, a hero, therefore a number of the theoretical conclusions of the school were rejected by subsequent directions. In the 20th century within the framework of M.Sh. a "neomythological" theory was born, which was based on Jung's doctrine of archetypes. "Neo-mythologists" reduce many plots and images of new literature to symbolically rethought archetypes of ancient myths, while giving priority to ritual over the content of myth. The new direction has become widespread in Anglo-American literary criticism.

The science of literature has evolved over the centuries. mythological school in the opinion of many pre-scientific. mythological school still exists today, originating in the middle of the 18th century. mythological school formed within the framework romanticism , who rejected solid knowledge that fetters freedom and poetry.

mythological school originated in Germany. In the 1830s there appeared fairy tale book by the brothers grimm and "German mythology" , in which there was a noticeable nationalist bias. By that time it was opened the fact (at the end of the 18th century) of the similarity of the plots of fairy tales, epics of the peoples of the world (vagrant plots), spawned several scientific directions. Grimm concluded the existence one people with one mythology– Aryans, Aryan theory. The national myths of different peoples are fragments of the ancient Aryan myth, and it was the Germans who best preserved this myth, and of them the Germans, therefore, their culture is the most complete => idealization of ancestors. All culture was born from myth (Schelling). The idealization of ancestors is romanticized. The more integral the mythology of the people, the closer it is to the source material, to the ancestors - genius peoples. Each folklorist looked for signs of the creative genius of his people, evaluated writers on the basis of the presence of the people in him. Romantics discovered the fact of the similarity of the myths of the Indo-European peoples, this fact needed to be explained. The theory of vagrant plots – one people borrowed stories from another, but this theory was not confirmed when studying the mythology of distant peoples.

AT 40s of the 19th century Slavophile supporters of the mythological theory appear - Moscow school. Representatives:

1. Buslaev F. I . – linguist, specialist in Slavic linguistics. He believed that myth and language are born at the same time.

2. Afanasiev folklorist, collector of fairy tales. Work "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature"- equality of poetry and myth. His thought existed within the framework of his contemporary philosophy about the eternity and inviolability of myth. He shared myths about earth, sky, solar myths.

3. Potebnya A. A . - belongs to two schools, including the psychological one, a linguist, was engaged in Slavic linguistics. He developed Afanasyev's thoughts - the presence of form and content in the myth, singled out the internal and external form in the language: the sound and etymology, which goes back to the myth, it is more stable. Much of what Jung called archetypes. He considered the question of the mutual influence of language and myth. Language itself creates myth.

4. Losev A. F . - name-worship - every name is a myth. Dialectics ascends step by step to myth. Proceedings "Dialectics of Myth", "Philosophy of the Name".

5. Meletinsky Poetry is always myth.

mythological school – approach in which the myth is considered the primary source of everything.

Allocate different types of myth: etiological(about the birth of the world) and eschatological(about the end of the world, including apocalyptic myths).

Symbolists - Russian neo-romanticists who tried to restore the myth in its entirety (including Nietzsche). They considered the process of moving away from myth as the dying of art and the degeneration of poetry. Myth is the soil on which everything has grown. The origin of human thinking is connected with the myth. Losing figurativeness, a person loses the universality of the worldview, the loss of its integrity, and the myth - its integrity. The logic of science is the death of poetry, therefore mythos and logos are eternally at enmity. Symbolists distinguished the ebb and flow of worldview, proclaimed the slogan of mythmaking. These tendencies were reflected in science.

In the 1930s, a trend appeared in literary criticism. paleontology and archeology of meanings. School Marra, he created a new doctrine of language (the stages of linguistic thinking in accordance with the formations of society), created a group of philologists who published a number of articles and a collection "Tristan and Isolde: from the heroine of the European medieval epic to the matriarchal goddess of Afro-Eurasia". He proclaimed the principle of studying all stages of human development from the most ancient. O. Freidenberg "Poetics of Plot and Genre" sees the origins of the genre in the myth. Genres are the fate of literature and have existed for a very long time, because there is inertia laid down in ancient times, this idea was supported by M. M. Bakhtin, he spoke about the existence of the original memory of the genre, which retains its source. Marr School began with the debunking of a myth. They came to the conclusion that the power of myth over man does not end. Only myth answers questions about the meaning of being, the origins and the end of everything ( Meletinsky E. M. "Poetics of myth" ).

Mythologism in the literature of the 20th century - novel-myth. Meletinsky- a supporter of the modernist understanding of the myth that it is possible to create a myth. Myths develop very slowly, one myth crowds out another.

V. Ya. Propp started at formal school, but then publishes a book with the opposite pathos "The Historical Roots of a Fairy Tale". He made two main points: initiation and burial. Subsequently, he joined the ritual-mythological school, which claimed the ritual was earlier in relation to the myth.

Ritual-mythological school .

Western Science (esp. England) was closely associated with ethnography. New primitive peoples of Australia, Oceania, South America fell into the attention of European ethnographers, and discovered repetition of plots of non-contiguous peoples. offered a doctrine of human nature(anthropological school). The most archaic people were the natives of Australia (stopped in the Mesolithic, the magic of the totemic order, there is still no interest in man, only in animals). This material allowed us to look more specifically at the development of human culture. E. Taylor "Primitive Culture"- a work on primitive forms of ritual, ancient organizations and structures of society. He argued about the positive impact of monotheism on the formation of united states. The origin of cultures from myth. J. Fraser "Golden Bough"- considers the origin of power, myths about the father-head of the clan, gives examples from the cultures of everyday life of ancient tribes, the king had to confirm his power. Archaic myths about power are the source of patriarchal mythology, the source of state-patriotic ideology. The final stage is monotheism. Fraser's original thought about myth invincibility, and about the ritual-predecessor of the myth (the monkeys have a ritual), the myth is its explanation.

In Western European psychology, philosophy C. G. Jung began scientific work in Vienna psychological mug led by Freud (demythologization). As a result, Jung abandoned Freud's negative attitude towards myth and art as a kind of psychological deviation. Jung saw in the myth the support of man. He returned on the path of remythologization, proving that myths helped people survive throughout history. Myth according to Jung – experience and understanding of the world of life, this experience is fixed genetically, the biological state, it is the basis of survival. Developed the doctrine of archetypes. 6 main archetypes(generalized images): mother, maiden, elder, warrior, eternal child, trickster. The literature revolves around these archetypes. Jung - an opponent of the extreme avant-garde forms of modernism, believed that this art leads to the destruction of the integrity of the worldview. The main mythical heritage is inviolable. Archetypal memory is indestructible. Jung influenced modernist literature that turned to the past. He was critical of machine civilization, denied progress, which dooms him to a separation from the heritage of his ancestors.

Ethnographer, supporter of structuralism C. Levi-Strauss: Structuralism is basically demythological. He was engaged in the culture of the natives of South America, the culture of the most primitive tribes. The oldest forms of myth do not disappear, but are assimilated. Totemism in modern times has a place to be. Then structuralism came to skepticism, there are no serious changes in thinking, its most ancient forms are repeated.

N. Fry- Literary critic and theorist. Work "Anatomy of Criticism", 1957. He restores the world tree of human culture, a supporter of the anthropological school, restoring the unity of human tribes. Seasons – temperament, pathos, modes of understanding of the world. Spring mode - youth and joy, summer mode - maturity, strength, autumn mode - sadness, willingness to leave, winter - tragedy.

M. Eliade urged to restore the myth in its rights, literature does not fundamentally differ from myth, attached to the soil of mythology, all writers create a myth. Negatively refers to myth-making.

The original theses of the mythological school are preserved.

Mythological school 1. Mythology as a system of understanding of the world. Mythological thinking in Greco-Roman culture. Mythology is a form of social consciousness, the worldview of an ancient society, which combines both fantastic and realistic perception of the surrounding reality. As a rule, myths try to answer the following basic questions: the origin of the Universe, the Earth and man; explanation of natural phenomena; life, fate, death of a person; human activity and its achievements; issues of honor, duty, ethics and morality. The features of the myth are: the humanization of nature; the presence of fantastic gods, their communication, interaction with a person; lack of abstract reflections (reflection); the practical orientation of the myth towards solving specific life problems (economy, protection from the elements, etc.); monotony and surface mythological plots. Mythological worldview - regardless of whether it refers to the distant past or today, we will call such a worldview that is not based on theoretical arguments and reasoning, or on an artistic and emotional experience of the world, or on public illusions born of inadequate perception by large groups of people (classes , nations) social processes and their role in them. One of the features of myth, which unmistakably distinguishes it from science, is that myth explains "everything", since for it there is no unknown and unknown. It is the earliest, and for modern consciousness - archaic, form of worldview. We meet myths in all cultural regions of the Ancient World. Mythology is a systematized, universal form of social consciousness and a spiritual and practical way of mastering the world, primitive society. This is historically the first attempt to give a coherent answer to people's worldview questions, to satisfy their need for world clarification and self-determination. Any myth is built as a narrative on one or another worldview topic - about the world order, about the origin of the human race, about the elements, gods, titans, heroes. Antique myths are widely known - detailed narratives of the ancient Greeks and Romans about gods, titans, heroes, fantastic animals. Ancient mythology, along with biblical mythology, is rightfully considered the most significant in terms of the degree of its influence on the further development of the culture of many peoples, especially European ones. deep understanding and study. It is impossible to overestimate their aesthetic significance: there is not a single type of art left that would not have plots based on ancient mythology in its arsenal - they are in sculpture, in painting, music, poetry, prose, etc. As for literature, A. S. Pushkin said it beautifully at one time: “I don’t think it’s necessary to talk about the poetry of the Greeks and Romans: it seems that every educated person should have a sufficient understanding of the creations of majestic antiquity.” The ancient Greeks were an active, energetic people who were not afraid to explore the real world, although it was inhabited by creatures hostile to man, instilling fear in him. But the boundless thirst for knowledge of this world overcame the fear of an unknown danger. The adventures of Odysseus, the campaign of the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece - these are all the same aspirations captured in poetic form to learn as much as possible about the land on which man lives. In their search for protection from terrible elemental forces, the Greeks, like all ancient peoples, went through fetishism - a belief in the spirituality of dead nature (stones, wood, metal), which was then preserved in the worship of beautiful statues depicting their many gods. In their beliefs and myths, one can notice traces of animism and the most crude superstitions of the primitive era. But the Greeks switched to anthropomorphism quite early, creating their gods in the image and likeness of people, while endowing them with indispensable and enduring qualities - beauty, the ability to take on any image and, most importantly, immortality. The ancient Greek gods were like people in everything: kind, generous and merciful, but at the same time often cruel, vengeful and insidious. Human life inevitably ended in death, while the gods were immortal and knew no boundaries in fulfilling their desires, but all the same, fate was higher than the gods - Moira - a predestination that none of them could change. Thus, the Greeks, even in the fate of the immortal gods, saw their similarity with the fate of mortal people. The gods and heroes of Greek myth-making were living and full-blooded beings who directly communicated with mere mortals, entered into love unions with them, helping their favorites and chosen ones. And the ancient Greeks saw in the gods creatures in whom everything characteristic of man manifested itself in a more grandiose and sublime form. Of course, this helped the Greeks through the gods to better understand themselves, to comprehend their own intentions and actions, to adequately assess their strengths. Roman mythology was largely formed on the basis of Greek mythology, but initially the religious beliefs of the ancient Romans were based on animism - deification and endowing the soul with objects of the natural world. The Roman gods were not close to man, they rather acted as some formidable and terrible forces, the location and support of which could be earned through worship and special rituals. The Roman did not start a single business without a prayer appeal to the gods, however, it sometimes had a formal character, and was caused by the fear of incurring divine disgrace. It should be noted that the myths of Ancient Rome are not as poetic as the Greek ones: with the main emphasis on the plot and event line, Roman myths without any special artistic frills reflect the religious ideas of the people of that time. The Roman gods did not have their own Olympus, were not connected by ties of kinship, and often acted as symbols. For example, a stone symbolized the god Jupiter, fire was associated with the goddess Vesta, Mars was identified with a spear. Under the unspoken patronage of such images-symbols, with which the Roman gods were identified, the whole life of a Roman passed from birth to death. .Greek mythology and Roman mythology carry a powerful charge of philosophical, ethical and aesthetic understanding of life, posing questions to humanity that are still relevant. 2. The concept of myth, mythology in the methodology of the mythological school As a special method, mythological literary criticism was formed in the 30s of the 19th century. in Western Europe, although since the Middle Ages there has been hermeneutics - the interpretation of sacred esoteric texts, which had a philological and mythological understanding. M. sh. should not be identified with the science of mythology (see Myths), with mythological. theories. Although M. sh. dealt with mythology itself, but the latter acquired in its theoretical. constructions universal value as a source of nat. culture and was used to explain the origin and meaning of the phenomena of folklore. The philosophical basis of the classical mythological school was the aesthetics of Schelling, the Schlegell brothers, who argued that mythology is the basis of any culture, literature. Purposefully ideas began to develop during the formation of romanticism, when interest in the legendary past and folklore genres revived. The theory of the European mythological school was developed by the folklorists the Brothers Grimm in the book German Mythology. Using the principles of the comparative method, folklorists contrasted fairy tales in order to identify common patterns, images, and plots. In Russia, the mythological method spread in the middle of the 19th century. His classics are Buslaev, Afanasiev, Propp. Idealistic trends in the study of myths were theoretically generalized by Schelling. According to Schelling, myth was the prototype of poetry, from which philosophy and science then arose. In The Philosophy of Art, he argued that "mythology is a necessary condition and primary material for all art." Similar thoughts were expressed by F. Schlegel. In "Fragments" he wrote: "The core, the center of poetry should be sought in mythology and in the ancient mysteries"; according to Schlegel, the revival of art is possible only on the basis of myth-making, the source of it. nat. culture should become the mythology of the ancient Germans and the German born from it. nar. poetry. These ideas were also developed by A. Schlegel; V. and J. Grimm, with the names of which the ending is associated. design M. sh. Br. Grimm combined some folklore. ideas of the Heidelbergers with the mythology of Schelling-Schlegel. They believed that the poetry has a "divine origin"; a fairy tale, an epic, a legend, etc. arose from a myth in the process of its evolution; folklore is the unconscious and impersonal creativity of the collective people. souls. Transferring to the study of folklore methodology compares. linguistics, the Grimms erected similar phenomena in the field of folklore of different peoples to their common ancient mythology, to a kind of "pramith" (by analogy with the "proto-language"). In their opinion, the original mythological traditions are especially well preserved in it. nar. poetry. Grimm's views are theoretically summarized in their book. "German Mythology" (1835). In M. sh. two bases can be distinguished. directions: etymological (linguistic reconstruction of a myth) and analogous (comparison of myths similar in content). A. Kuhn in his works "The Descent of Fire and the Divine Drink" (1859) and "On the Stages of Myth Formation" interpreted mythological. images through semantic. convergence of names with Sanskrit words. He attracted to compare. the study of the Veda, which was also carried out by M. Muller in "Experiments in Comparative Mythology" and in "Readings on the Science of Language" (1861-64). Müller developed the methodology of linguistic paleontology). Kuhn and Muller sought to recreate the most ancient mythology, establishing the similarities of the names of mythological. images of different Indo-European. peoples, reducing the content of myths to the deification of natural phenomena - the luminaries ("solar theory" Muller), thunderstorms, etc. ("meteorological theory" Kuhn). Principles of Linguistics. The study of mythology was originally applied by F. Buslaev in the works of the 1840-50s. Sharing the general theory of M. sh., Buslaev believed that all genres of folklore arose in the "epic period" from myth, and erected, for example. , epic images to the mythological. legends about the origin of rivers (Danube), about giants living in the mountains (Svyatogor), etc. An extreme expression of solar-meteorological. theory received in the work of O. Miller "Ilya Muromets and the Bogatyrdom of Kiev" (1869). On the basis of the "analogous" study of myths, various theories arose. So, V. Schwartz and V. Manhardt derived myths not from the deification of celestial phenomena, but from the worship of “lower” demonic beings (demonological, or naturalistic theory), in connection with which they associated folklore with “lower mythology. A peculiar synthesis of various theories of M. sh. was the work "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature". A. N. Afanasyev, to-ry, along with Buslaev, was the first in Russia to apply the principles of M. sh. to the study of folklore. Tribute to M. sh. given in early works by A. N. Pypin (“On Russian Folk Tales”, 1856) and A. N. Veselovsky (“Notes and Doubts on the Comparative Study of the Medieval Epos”, 1868; “Comparative Mythology and Its Method”, 1873), moreover, the latter introduced the idea of ​​historicism into the understanding of mythology and its relationship with folklore. Subsequently, Buslaev, Pypin and Veselovsky criticized the concept of M. sh. Methodology and conclusions M. sh., based on the idealistic. understanding of mythology and exaggeration of its role in the history of art, are not accepted by the subsequent development of science, but at one time M. sh. played an important role, contributing to the active study of folklore and the justification of the nationality of the art. M. sh. laid the foundations of comparative mythology and folklore and put a number of significant theoretical. problems. 3. The theory of myth in the concept of the Brothers Grimm "German Mythology" 1853 The German scientists brothers W. and J. Grimm were influenced by romantic aesthetics, which contained the thesis of the "national spirit" of each nation. Mythology was recognized as the source of art. The Grimm brothers set out to recreate German mythology, for which they began to study the folklore of the language of the ancient Germans. Scientists for the first time pointed out that the roots of national culture are associated with ancient folk beliefs - paganism. The main work of J. Grimm "German mythology" ("Deutsche Myfologie", 1835) gave the name to the first theoretical direction of folklore. After the publication of "German Mythology" in Western European philological science, the view of mythology as a product of an "unconsciously creative spirit", a kind of "collective soul" at the same time as an expression of the essence of folk life, is finally affirmed. In 1835, Jacob Grimm's long-standing plan was realized to reconstruct Germanic mythology, explain it and restore to it at least a particle of the authority that it enjoyed in the days of German antiquity and which, in the opinion of the Brothers Grimm, it fully deserves. “The basis of the foundations of legend is myth,” writes J. Grimm in the preface to German Mythology, “that is, faith in the gods ... Without such a mythological basis, one cannot understand tradition, just as without knowing the specific events that have occurred, one cannot imagine history » . "German Mythology" is a gigantic work on her description of German mythology as an independent part of a single German-Scandinavian mythology, against a broad background of comparing it with the mythologies of many European and Asian peoples. The word "mythology" has two main meanings: firstly, it is a set of fantastic ideas about the world contained in the legends (myths) of a particular people, and, secondly, it is a science that studies myths. J. Grimm uses it in both senses, depending on the context. Creating this work, J. Grimm pursued two main goals: 1) to prove the original originality and great cultural significance of the most ancient pagan folk-mythological beliefs; 2) to affirm the primordial kinship and common origin of all Indo-European peoples on the basis of the kinship of mythologies at the initial stage of the development of these peoples. The myth, according to J. Grim, is the common property of peoples: borrowings and influences took place, but they by no means explain the similarity of many fundamental features in the mythology of the Indo-European peoples. The breadth of the universally synthetic approach of J. Grimm to the study of the antiquities of the national German culture was largely lost by his followers, and the scope of the comparative mythological method developed by him in restoring the most ancient layers of not only German-Scandinavian, but also the entire Indo-European mythology was also narrowed. In his work, J. Grimm uses a huge amount of material, relying on a wide variety of folklore and historical sources, including Greek and Roman authors. J. Grimm's field of vision includes not only life and heroes, but everything that is somehow clothed in the fantasy of the ancient Germans and plays an important role in their system of views on the world and nature. An important place is given here to the religious customs and superstitions of the ancient and contemporary Germanic, Slavic and Romanesque peoples. So, according to their theory, the Grimm brothers argued that a fairy tale, epic, legend, etc. arose from myth in the process of evolution, which are also the unconscious creativity of the collective “soul of the people”. This theory formed two currents: etymological (linguistic reconstruction of myths) and analogous (comparison of myths similar in content). As G. Gerstner noted, "this work served as an impetus for many research works and the beginning of a new science - mythology." This book inspired many contemporaries to work, poets and artists turned to it, "they found similar plots and motives in it." "German Mythology" by Jacob Grimm received the widest recognition both in Germany and abroad and became an authoritative work that contributed to the final formation and establishment of an influential mythological school in philological science, which had many adherents. 4. The concept of the mythological school in the works of domestic researchers: Buslaev, Afanasiev, Miller, Kotlerovsky, Potebnya, Veselovsky. The Russian mythological school took shape at the turn of the 1840s and 50s. Its founder was F.I. Buslaev, “the first Russian genuine scientist-folklorist”2. Buslaev was a philologist of a wide range (linguist, researcher of ancient Russian literature and folk poetry). Following the brothers Grimm, Buslaev established the connection between folklore, language and mythology, singled out "The collective nature of the artistic creativity of the people. He applied mythological analysis to Slavic material. Buslaev's works developed the idea that the people's consciousness manifested itself in two most important forms: language and myth. Myth is a form of people's thought and people's consciousness. Buslaev as a mythologist is characterized by capital work" Historical essays on Russian folk literature and art ". Later, the scientist appreciated the positive aspects of other areas in folklore and showed himself in them. The brothers Grimm and Buslaev were the founders of mythological theory. "Younger mythologists" (the school of comparative mythology) expanded the scope of research on myths, attracted folklore and language of other Indo-European peoples, improved the method, which was based on the comparative study of ethnic groups. In Europe, and then in Russia, the mythological school received a number of varieties. The meteorological (or "thunderstorm") theory connected the origin of myths with atmospheric phenomena; solar theory saw primitive ideas about the sky and the sun at the basis of myths - and so on. At the same time, all mythologists were united by the belief that the ancient religion was the religion of nature, the deification of its forces. In Russia, the school of comparative mythology had many followers. The solar-meteorological concept was developed by O. F. Miller ("Ilya Muromets and the Kievan Bogatyrs. Comparative Critical Observations on the Layer Composition of the Russian Folk Epos". - St. Petersburg, 1869). Having carefully selected a huge amount of material, the author tried to single out layers of different antiquity in the Russian epic, to separate historical and everyday elements from mythological ones. The most famous representative of the Russian school of junior mythologists was A. N. Afanasiev, who entered the history of folklore not only as the compiler of the famous collection "Russian Folk Tales", but also as a major researcher. Comments on the tales of his collection, highlighted in the second edition in a separate, fourth volume, formed the basis of Afanasyev's capital work "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature. The experience of a comparative study of Slavic traditions and beliefs, in connection with the mythical tales of other kindred peoples, Afanasyev acted as a student of F "I. Buslaev, a follower of the Brothers Grimm and other Western European scientists. However, he introduced something new into the mythological theory. Afanasiev attracted such a huge amount of factual material that "Poetic Views ..." immediately became a striking phenomenon in world science and still remain a valuable reference book on Slavic mythology. Afanasyev outlined his theoretical views in the first chapter, which he called "The Origin of the Myth, the Method and Means of Studying It". For Afanasyev, folklore is an important and reliable source of mythological research. The researcher examined riddles, proverbs, signs, incantations, ritual songs, epics, spiritual fairy tales. n wrote: "A comparative study of the tales that live in the mouths of the Indo-European peoples leads to two conclusions: firstly, that the tales were created on the motives underlying the ancient views of the Aryan people on nature, and secondly, that in all likelihood, already in this long-standing Aryan era, the main types of fairy-tale epic were developed and then scattered by the divided tribes in different directions -: to the places of their new settlements. This was how the international similarity of fairy tale plots and images was explained. These are the main provisions of Buslaev's mythological theory, which in the 60-70s of the 19th century gradually develops into a school of comparative mythology and borrowing theory. The theory of comparative mythology was developed by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasiev (1826-1871), Orest Fedorovich Miller (1833-1889) and Alexander Alexandrovich Kotlyarevsky (1837-1881). The focus of their attention was the problem of the origin of the myth in the very process of its creation. Most of the myths, according to this theory, go back to the ancient tribe of the Aryans. Standing out from this common great-tribe, the peoples spread its legends all over the world, therefore the legends of the "Pigeon Book" almost completely coincide with the songs of the Old Norse "Elder Edda" and the ancient myths of the Hindus. The comparative method, according to Afanasiev, "provides the means to restore the original form of legends." Epics are of particular importance for understanding Slavic mythology (this term was introduced by I.P. Sakharov; before that, epic songs were called oldies). Russian heroic epics can be put on a par with heroic myths in other mythological systems, with the difference that the epics are largely historical, telling about the events of the 11th-16th centuries. Heroes of epics - Ilya Muromets, Volga, Mikula Selyaninovich, Vasily Buslaev and others are perceived not only as individuals related to a certain historical era, but above all - as defenders, ancestors, namely epic heroes. Hence - their unity with nature and magical power, their invincibility (there are practically no epics about the death of heroes or about the battles they played). Initially existing in the oral version, as the work of singer-storytellers, epics, of course, have undergone considerable changes. There is reason to believe that they once existed in a more mythologized form. Slavic mythology is characterized by the fact that it is comprehensive and does not represent a separate area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe people's idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe world and the universe (like fantasy or religion), but is embodied even in everyday life - whether it be rituals, rituals, cults or an agricultural calendar, preserved demonology (from brownies, witches and goblin to banniks and mermaids) or a forgotten identification (for example, the pagan Perun with the Christian saint Ilya). Therefore, almost destroyed at the level of texts until the 11th century, it continues to live in images, symbolism, rituals and in the language itself. Mythological school already in the 1850s. criticized by such scientists as Konstantin Dmitrievich Kavelin and Alexander Nikolaevich Pypin; in the 1860s-1870s they were joined by supporters of the theory of borrowing, the theory of broad cultural communication between peoples, and the historical school. A. N. Veselovsky consistently criticized the mythological school in the articles Notes and Doubts on the Comparative Study of the Medieval Epic (1868) and Comparative Mythology and Its Method (1873), and later in the unfinished Poetics of Plots. According to A. N. Veselovsky, the discovery of similar motifs and plots among non-Indo-European peoples led to the undermining of mythological theory; many etymologies, on the basis of which the gods of various Indo-European traditions were identified, turned out to be incorrect; it turned out that the Vedas are not a monument to the most ancient poetry of mankind, but a work created by priests; more and more doubts began to cause "sunny", "thunderstorm", "starry" and other interpretations of myths. The emergence of cultural anthropology, ethnography, and religious studies narrowed the field on which the concepts of the mythological school were built. It became clear that the unity of Indo-European mythologies is relative, that not all genres of folklore go back to myths, and that in general the relationship between folklore and mythology is very complex and ambiguous. The idea of ​​reducing fairy tales and epics to "natural" myths was finally compromised by the epigones and became an object for parodies. The scientific activity of two of the greatest Russian philologists of the 19th century, A. Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya and Alexei Nikolaevich Veselovsky, began with a critical overcoming of the ideas of the mythological school. At the same time, they retained the most valuable thing that it contained in itself: the idea of ​​syncretism (the close connection of language, poetry and mythology, a view of the change of various forms of artistic consciousness as a natural historical process in which each previous stage determines the next one). Starting from the mythological concepts of the mid-19th century, A. A. Potebnya and A. N. Veselovsky created mutually complementary theories of the origin of verbal art, in which myth, mythological thinking and the mythical component of language played an important role of the initial foundation and initial impetus. It was in this transformed form that the heritage of the mythological school became the property of science in the 20th century. A.A. Potebnya gave a deep analysis of the mythological semantics of many images of Slavic folk poetry. Major works: “Thought and Language” (1862), “On the Mythical Significance of Some Beliefs and Rituals” (1865), “Notes on the Little Russian Dialect” (1870), “From Notes on Russian Grammar” (doctoral dissertation, 1874), “ From the history of the sounds of the Russian language” (1880–1886), “Language and nationality” (1895, posthumously), “From notes on the theory of literature” (1905, posthumously). Potebnya was influenced by the ideas of W. Humboldt, but rethought them in a psychological spirit. He studied a lot the correlation of thinking and language, including in the historical aspect, revealing on Russian and Slavic material, historical changes in the thinking of the people. The main theses of the philosophical and linguistic concept of Potebnya: 1. “Language is a means not to express a ready-made thought, but to create it ...” (language forms thinking); Language for Potebnya is not an isolated phenomenon. It is inextricably linked with the culture of the people. Following Humboldt, Potebnya sees in language a mechanism that generates thought. Language has inherent creative potential. Thought manifests itself through language, and each act of speaking is a creative process in which the already prepared truth is not repeated, but a new one is born. But, at the same time, “the mythical image is not an invention, not a consciously arbitrary combination of data in the head, but such a combination of them that seemed the most true to reality” [Potebnya, 483]. 2. Mythological thinking, from the point of view of Potebnya, differed from subsequent forms in that it did not yet have a separation of the image of a thing from the thing itself, objective from subjective, internal from external. In the myth, the image of the object and the object itself are not distinguished (a nail or hair can replace a person in a ritual). Potebnya quite rightly pointed out that initially the language was dominated not by abstract, but by concrete meanings, and at the same time, unconsciously metaphorical ones, that “metaphoricity is a constant property of the language and we can only translate it from metaphor to metaphor” [Potebnya, 590]. It is very significant that Potebnya noticed the concreteness of primitive thinking, the “substantiality of the image”, which exists alongside the symbolism of myth. By analyzing folklore language texts, he revealed a number of features of primitive thinking, while emphasizing that the tools of thinking of primitive and modern man are the same as the modern researcher “would call the cloud a cow if he had as much information about the cloud and the cow as the ancient Aryan ". 3. Potebnya sees in mythology the first and necessary stage in the progressive evolution of types of cognition of reality. The evolution of myths, in his opinion, testifies not to the fall (as with the representatives of the mythological school), but to the rise (more precisely, the complication) of human thought. The analogy between myth and scientific activity is manifested both in their common orientation towards knowledge of the surrounding world, and in the nature of the explanation: both myth and science use the general principle of explanation by analogy. 4. According to Potebnya, a myth is born as a result of a double mental procedure: a person first creates a model of the heavenly world based on his earthly experience, and then explains earthly life with the help of a model of heavenly life. Moreover, the heavenly symbolism for Potebnya is not the only one (as the adherents of the solar theory of myth - A. Kun, V. Schwartz, A. N. Afanasiev, O. F. Miller believed), but only one of several levels of the mythological text. 5. "Society precedes the beginning of the language" (language is a product of the "folk spirit"). In the unity of the language, Potebnya saw the main sign of the people. Everything else (geographical unity of the territory, statehood, unity of way of life, customs, etc.) are derived from it. If the people get rid of this sign, then it will already be the death of his soul. He will "wash out", "dissolve" among other people. It follows from this that it is necessary to study the word in its direct connection with the ethnographic context; in a word, a person objectifies the perception of the world and connects this word with other words. 6. All-penetrating semantics of Potebnya's theory. The scientist paid the main attention not to the plot of the myth, but to its meaning. Potebnya believed that in the same image different ideas can coexist, up to the opposite. The provision on the ambiguity of the image has become an axiom in modern studies of symbolism, and Potebnya was the first to substantiate it in theoretical terms and widely use it in specific developments. 7. The scientist outlined the main set of semiotic oppositions of the Slavic picture of the world (share - lack, life - death, etc.). 8. The doctrine of the internal form of the word (“the closest etymological meaning”, realized by native speakers). He proposed to distinguish between "further" (associated, on the one hand, with encyclopedic knowledge, and on the other hand, with personal psychological associations, and in both cases individual) and "closest" (common to all native speakers, "folk", or, as more often they say now in Russian linguistics, "naive") meaning of the word. The feature underlying the nomination is not necessarily essential; it can be simply bright, conspicuous. This explains the fact that in different languages ​​the same phenomenon can be named on the basis of distinguishing different features (cf. Russian tailor from ports "clothes", German Schneider from schneiden "cut", Bolg. "). The internal form of the word is an intermediary between what is explained in the myth and what it explains. 5. "Historical essays on Russian folk literature and art" Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) - an outstanding Russian philologist and art critic, professor at Moscow University, academician of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Buslaev's works in the field of Slavic Russian linguistics, Old Russian literature, oral folk art and the history of Old Russian fine arts constituted a whole era in the development of science. In the process of research, Buslaev's views underwent a certain evolution: if at first he acted as a consistent representative of the mythological school in Russian science, then later he began to share the views of supporters of the migration theory, which explained the similarity of folklore plots among different peoples by mutual borrowing. Buslaev did a lot for a comprehensive study of the monuments of ancient Russian literature. He was one of the first to raise the question of the need to study the works of ancient Russian literature in close connection with the fine arts, paying attention not only to the content of the monument, but also to its aesthetic value, emphasizing the inseparable unity of language, poetry and mythology. Buslaev believed that language is a means of "acquiring" thoughts, it reflects the whole life of the people. The results of Buslaev's research are summarized in Historical Sketches of Russian Folk Literature and Art (1861). For this work, Buslaev was awarded a doctorate in literature. The first volume contains studies on folk poetry: first - chapters that have poetry as a subject in connection with language and folk life, then - the study of Slavic poetry in comparison with the poetry of other peoples (Germanic, Scandinavian), then - the national poetry of the Slavic tribes in general, and, finally - Russian. According to Buslaev, the worldview, folk morality is manifested primarily in language and mythology, and folk poetry is a moral ideal. The second volume deals with folk elements of ancient Russian literature and art. Buslaev was a philologist of a wide range (linguist, researcher of ancient Russian literature and folk poetry). Following the brothers Grimm, Buslaev established the connection between folklore, language and mythology, singled out the principle of the collective nature of the artistic creativity of the people. He applied mythological analysis to Slavic material. Buslaev's works developed the idea that people's consciousness manifested itself in two most important forms: language and myth. Myth is a form of folk thought and folk consciousness. Buslaev as a mythologist is characterized by the capital work “Historical Essays on Russian Folk Literature and Art” (T. 1-11. - St. Petersburg, 1861). Later, the scientist appreciated the positive aspects of other areas in folklore and showed himself in them. The book was written in 1865-1869. Author Afanasiev A.N. tries to understand the reason for the appearance of beliefs, customs and traditions. The ancient Slavs, in his opinion, were extremely uneducated people and saw what was not there. In his opinion, all beliefs originated out of ignorance and on the intuition of a person who did not understand the world around him, who saw a huge sky and immediately idolized it, although in reality it is just a soulless sky. In his opinion, it is naive to believe that Gods exist at all. Afanasiev makes it clear to his reader that all this was invented by illiterate people, far from science, and over all their beliefs one can only smile. Praise of paganism was not at all the purpose of the author. He was just trying to get to the bottom of things. What, why, how and where? For these purposes, he turns to ancient myths, the analysis of Old Slavonic words, the origin of concepts. As Alexander Afanasyevich himself says: only one forgotten word can immediately destroy a whole layer of culture. One word can hold the conceptual meaning of dozens of ideas about the world, and, forgetting only one word, throwing it out of use, we immediately lose the understanding of many things. Surprisingly, in his book he manages to prove this, and he brilliantly presents his findings to readers. It is precisely this kind of research that Afanasiev is engaged in in his book, raising from the past the long-forgotten and restoring the overall picture bit by bit, composing an incredibly beautiful panel from a mosaic destroyed by time. Afanasiev opens up a whole layer of symbols and allegories in the ideas, beliefs and legends of the Slavs. All of them are connected with the poetic views of our ancestors on the surrounding world and nature. What in fairy tales, epics may seem cruel and even bloody, he interprets as ordinary natural phenomena, to which people have given a human form. This is nothing else, but the observation of man over nature and the identification of all this with man and the Gods. After this book, you can look at all the fairy tales and legends in a completely new way, which now seem not cruel, but understandable and clear. Now we don’t even guess from what, from what ideas those images and fairy-tale heroes were born. Afanasiev, from his point of view, attributes them to observations of natural phenomena, such as clouds, stars, thunder, lightning, water, and so on. It can be assumed that many of these statements are indeed true and have solid ground. However, it is still not worth taking one hundred percent everything written at face value, because some things are only the theory of the author Afanasyev A.N. From the book "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" you will learn the true meaning of words that are now pronounced completely thoughtlessly, but in fact have a completely amazing meaning and original meaning. The original meaning of some of the legends that Afanasyev talks about, with the passage of time, has gone so far from its basis that it is now very difficult to get to the bottom of it. I will present the author’s way of thinking to make it clearer what is at stake: Watching clouds and lightning, people came up with a story about these phenomena, then this story changed, the phenomena became not just clouds and lightning, they personified, turned into heroes, practically nothing not related to the original observations of people over nature, and such are all legends and fairy tales, beliefs and religions, according to Afanasiev. For example, we can cite the legend about Svyatogor, who lay down in a coffin, the lid closed behind him, and he cannot open it in any way. Ilya Muromets or another hero tries to help open the coffin, hits the lid with a sword, but instead of collapsing, the coffin is covered with iron strips. Afanasiev relates this legend to the ideas of the Slavs about summer and winter: frosts turn water and earth into stone and they find themselves captive in an ice coffin that cannot be split and destroyed. Winter fetters summer-life with its icy chains, and no matter how much life tries to resist it, the ice coffin becomes harder and stronger. With the passage of time, ideas about winter were transformed into a legend about Svyatogor and Ilya Muromets. Another interesting example is the tale of the hero Boy with a Thumb. According to this tale, a boy with a finger hides from danger in a horse's mane, gains strength there, and then victories appear 7. Mythological criticism as a direction in Anglo-Amer. literature of the 20th century MYTHOLOGICAL CRITICISM (eng. myth criticism) - a trend in Anglo-American literary criticism of the 20th century, also called "ritual", "archetypal" criticism. "Ritual" branch of M.K. originates in the studies of J. Fraser, the "archetypal" is generated by the concepts of C. Jung. In the USA, where the genesis of M. to. largely predetermined by the work of the Swiss psychologist, it is sometimes called "Jungian". The birthplace of the "ritual", Fraser branch of M.K. is England. Chronologically, "ritual" criticism, the work of whose representatives appeared in the early 20th century, precedes the "archetypal" Jungian, which declared itself in the late 1910s. Modern M.K. presents an original literary methodology based mainly on the latest teachings about myth as a decisive factor for understanding the entire artistic production of mankind, ancient and modern. All literary and artistic works are either called myths, or so many structural and meaningful elements of myth (mythologems, mythems) are found in them that the latter become decisive for understanding and evaluating this work. Myth, therefore, is seen not only as a natural, historically conditioned source of artistic creativity, which gave it its initial impetus, but also as a transhistorical generator of literature, keeping it within certain mythocentric frameworks. In the concept of N. Fry, set forth in the book "Anatomy of Criticism" (1957), the history of world literature is understood as circulating in a vicious circle: literature is first separated from myth, developing its own, historically determined modes, but ultimately returns to myth again (there is referring to the work of modernist writers). The fashion for myth, a kind of mythocentric totalitarianism, came at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, replacing the contemptuous and arrogant attitude towards mythology on the part of the rationalists-enlighteners. Unlike the classicists, representatives of pre-romanticism and romanticism considered spontaneous folk art, including myology, as a manifestation of the highest artistry, marked by freshness and immediacy of perception. The forerunners of such an understanding of myth in the 18th century. were T. Blackwell in England and I. Herder in Germany. This new approach to myth became dominant after the appearance of the philosophical works of F. Schelling and the literary and theoretical works of the German romantics. Philosophical, ideological interpretations of the myth, continued after the romantics R. Wagner and F. Nietzsche, and in the 20th century. found expression in diametrically opposed approaches to mythology on the part of T. Mann, who advocated humanism, and the theorists of fascism, who sought to use myth in narrowly nationalistic interests, were supplemented by studies by anthropologists, linguists and sociologists. Mythological school in literary criticism of the 19th century. claimed to explain the early, folklore forms of artistic creativity, revealing mythological themes and motifs in fairy tales, epics, songs. In every country where this direction existed, incl. and in Russia, it helped to reveal the deep national origins of artistic creativity. M.k. 20th century claims to be more, striving to reduce all modern fiction to myth, not only in genetic, but also in structural, content and ideological terms. The first major school of modern M.C. originated in England in the early 20th century. It was the result of the influence of the ideas of Fraser, an English researcher of ancient cultures, a representative of the anthropological trend in the science of myth. The genesis of this trend is associated with the name of the Frenchman B. Fontenelle, and its heyday - with the activities of the English anthropological school (E. Taylor, E. Lang, etc.), whose work was continued by Fraser at the turn of the century. He is known for his multi-volume work The Golden Bough (1890-1915). If Taylor developed the theory of "survivals", Lang paid much attention to the problem of the totem and ancient religions, then Fraser concentrated his efforts on the study of magic and the seasonal rituals associated with it, which, in his opinion, played an extremely important role in primitive societies and had a huge impact on the artistic world. culture of ancient people. The rituals themselves were artistic actions, and myths became their verbal equivalents, among which the most important is the myth of a dying and resurrecting deity. Such deities were Osiris (among the Egyptians), Adonis (among the Greeks), Attis (among the Romans). Among the students and followers of Fraser, attracted by his scientific depth and style. research, bringing them closer to works of art, were many literary gifted people who tried to apply his theories as a tool for literary research. This is how the school of English M.C. arose, which can be more accurately defined as "ritual" criticism, for its first representatives were the orthodox followers of Fraser. They were associated with the University of Cambridge, which is why this group is often referred to as the "Cambridge school of myth-criticism." The first generation of its representatives include E. Chambers, J. Weston, J. Harrison, F. Cornford and G. Murray, who joined them, who worked in Oxford. At a later stage, the English M.K. critics were represented by F. Raglan and R. Graves, who were quite firmly oriented towards Fraser's Golden Bough. K. Still and M. Bodkin, who spoke in the 1930s, were not content with the positivist and evolutionist orientation of Fraser’s ideas, gravitating in their mythocritical constructions to metaphysical and “protostructuralist” (Still), as well as Freudian-Jungian, deep psychological views (Bodkin). The first researcher to apply Fraser's concepts for literary purposes was Chambers, who published Medieval Scene in 1903, in which the desire to give a new Fraser interpretation of some elements of medieval drama is obvious. In the subsequent work of the Cambridge mythological critics, the ritual method of analysis gradually became dominant. The most famous mythocritical works of the 1910s and 20s are The Origin of Attic Comedy (1914) by Cornford, From Ritual to Novel (1920) by Weston. The Jungian orientation soon begins to compete with the Fraser one, and then to supplant it. Bodkin's Archetypes in Poetry (1934) is evidence of this. The term "archetype" itself, although it was not coined by K. Jung, was introduced into wide literary usage by him. The archetype in Jung's understanding is the main, albeit unconscious, means of transmitting the most valuable and important human experience from generation to generation. The archetype is a derivative and integral part of the "collective unconscious", which the Zurich psychologist opposed to the individual unconscious of Z. Freud. In the "collective unconscious" accumulated, according to Jung, all the wisdom of mankind. Already with these alone, Jung contrasted his teaching with the early Freudian concepts with their interpretation of the “unconscious” as a reservoir of repressed erotic desires, narrowly selfish and socially destructive in nature. The ideal manifestation of the "collective unconscious" (according to not only Jung, but also F. Schelling) were myths, the images of which turned into archetypes, became the basis of all subsequent artistic creativity. The development of modern art and literature is conceived by Jung as the extraction by the artist from the unconscious programmed in him of more or less disguised, "modernized" unchanging entities - "original images", or archetypes. The archetype of Hamlet was Orestes. Shakespeare drew this image from the unconscious, and did not consciously draw a copy, having a model in front of his eyes. The works of Murray and Bodkin testified to the beginning of a new, deep psychological Jungian current in English M.C., although its Fraserian beginning was not completely rejected. This is evidenced, in particular, by the works of fairly orthodox followers of Fraser: Raglan and Graves, who in his book The White Goddess (1958), using the lunar theory of myth, largely (as in his poems) relied on the ritualistic concepts developed in "Golden Branch". A special place among English myth-critics is occupied by Still, who became famous after the publication of the book The Eternal Theme (1936). To a certain extent, continuing the evolutionary traditions of the Fraser school, in particular, defining ritual and myth as something unified that serves as the basis of modern creativity, at the same time he overcomes the clearly expressed positivism of the first Cambridge mythocritics. Still is interested in the highest spiritual manifestations of man, and at all stages of his development. He, like Lang, believes that the idea of ​​holiness has always been inherent in people and that therefore the "eternal theme" of artistic creativity of all ages is the story of spiritual fall and subsequent moral rebirth (and not just bodily death and resurrection, as the orthodox followers of Fraser believed ). The biblical orientation of Still is obvious when defining the "eternal theme", or monomyth, which underlies all modern literature. This orientation makes it possible to speak of Still as one of the founders of a religious movement in contemporary M.C., a predecessor of J. Campbell and M. Eliade, the largest representatives of this movement, working in the USA. Modern M.K. received the greatest distribution in the USA; in France and Germany, mythocritical methodology was used only in the works of individual authors, without becoming a noticeable trend in literary criticism. We are talking about M.K., and not about the doctrines of myth, which appeared in the countries of continental Europe even to a greater extent than in England and the USA. The first works of American myth critics appeared in the late 1910s. They were called to life by the ideas of K. Jung that began to spread in the USA. A typical Jungian study was E. Taylor's article "Shelley as a myth-maker" (1871), which appeared in the Journal of Psychopathology, one of the first to publish Freudian and Jungian literary works. The penetration of Fraser's methodology into literary criticism in the United States begins only in the late 1930s, but in subsequent decades this methodology successfully competed with Jungian approaches. Jung's doctrine of unconscious channels for the transmission of artistic experience made it possible for Fraser's followers to overcome the obvious weakness of their methodology. There was no need for difficult searches for means and ways of transmitting ancient traditions. The first major American myth critic is W. Troy, whose works began to appear in print from the late 1930s. Unlike the works of English myth critics, Troy uses the mythological method to analyze the most modern literature, and not only to analyze the work of individual writers, but also literary movements. He seeks to show, for example, that Romanticism was nothing more than "the rebirth of a myth in the mind of the West." The work of R. Chase and N. Fry, who acted as both researchers of literature and theorists of the methodology under consideration, had a great influence on the formation and development of American mythological criticism. Chase strongly condemned all attempts to define mythology as an ancient ideology. A myth is only a work of art and nothing more, the researcher argued. Fry combines an evolutionary approach to myth with elements of structuralism, widely using both Fraser and Jungian approaches. He represents the myth as the core, the primary cell, from which all subsequent literature develops, returning at a certain turn to its original sources. Fry understands modernist literature as a new mythology. Mythocentrism, according to Fry, will give the science of literature a solid foundation, because "criticism is in dire need of a coordinating principle, a central concept, which, like the theory of evolution in biology, would help to realize literary phenomena as parts of one whole" (Fry, 16). Fry repeats, following Jung, that "primordial formulas", i.e. "archetypes" are constantly found in the works of the classics, and, moreover, there is a general tendency to reproduce these formulas. He even defines the "central myth" of all artistic creation, associated with the cycles of nature and the dream of a golden age - the myth of the hero's departure in search of adventure. Around this center, according to Fry, all literature revolves with its centripetal and centrifugal potencies. Based on the theoretical work of Chase and Fry, as well as on the study of the myth by Eliade, B. Malinovsky, the American M. to. in the 1940s and 60s it became one of the leading literary trends in its country. It was used by researchers of drama (C. Barber, G. Vots, G. Weisinger, F. Ferposon, T. Porter) and novel (R. Cook, Y. Franklin, F. Young, L. Fidler, J. Lufborough). To a lesser extent, mythocritical methodology was used to analyze poetic works. Mythological criticism in various countries, incl. and in Russia, they did a lot in the study of the genesis and typological aspects of literature, the nature of universal "eternal" images, symbols, themes, conflicts, in identifying artistic invariants in the literatures of various eras. 8. Roland Barthes "The Myth Today"