Поэтика мифа

Вместе с тем в художественной и мифологической фантазии и в человеческой фантазии вообще, в той мере, в какой она не «перекрывается» чисто научным рационалистическим познанием (хотя и в современной науке существуют классификации по вторичным чувственным качествам, отдаленно напоминая этим принцип древней мифологии), в той мере, в какой она не полностью сводится к своему конкретно-историческому выражению, имеется определенная общность. И в стремлении обнаружить эту общность заключен определенный позитивный смысл.

SUMMARY

This book compares the classical forms of myth (origin and ancient myths) and their scientific and artistic interpretations in the 20th century within the framework of modernistic renaissance of myth. Myth as a form of thinking and a product of unconscious poetic imagination is. viewed predominantly in terms of the prehistory of literature. Hence the title of the book. Such correlations as myth and religion, myth and political ideology are only touched upon in passing when dealing with some theories. In accordance with the concept the book is divided into three parts: 1. Modem theories of myth, ritualistic and mythological approach to literature. 2. Classical forms of myth and their projection in narrative folklore. 3. «Mythologism» in 20th century literature.

The first part contains introductory chapters dealing with the mythological theories of the 18th and 19th centuries and «remythologizing» in philosophy and culture studies at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the analysis of ritualism and functionalism, the French sociological school, symbolic theories of myth, analytical psychology, structuralism, «myth-ritual» literary criticism, the controversy of «poetics of myth» in Russian and Soviet science, followed by certain conclusions concerning modem theories of myth. The classical 19th century ethnography regarded myths as a naive attempt to describe the environment, essentually of a pre – or even anti-scientific nature, to satisfy the curiosity of a savage oppressed by the formidable elements and possessing but a meagre experience. New approaches to myth, often one-sided, but sometimes more profound, were outlined at the beginning of the century by Boas, Frazer and Durkheim and finally evolved into the ritualistic functionalism of Mali-novsky, the Levy-Bruhl's theory of prelogical primitive «collective representations», Cassirer's logical symbolism, even psychological «symbolism» of Jung and much later the structural analysis of Levi-Strauss. The positive contribution of the new ethnology is manifold. First, myths of primitive peoples are interwoven with magic and ritual, they function to maintain the natural and social order and social control; secondly, mythological thinking is peculiar in its logic and psychology; thirdly, myths are the most ancient form of thinking, a unique symbolic language, man's instrument of shaping, classifying and interpreting the surrounding world, society and himself; and, forthly, peculiar features of mythological thinking can be found in other products of man's imagination of ancient times and other historical periods. Myth as a total and dominant method of thinking is thus characteristic of archaic cultures, but may be present as a certain factor in various other cultures and especially in literature and art, which owe much to myth and share many specific features (raetaphorism, etc.). These new and positive ideas are, however, practically inseparable from a number of extreme and contradictory exaggerations. They tend to deny the cognitive aspect and disregard the historical context or, on the contrary, to overintellectualize myths and underestimate their pragmatic sociological function.