Perspective teoretice asupra mitului

Theoretical perspectives on myth

Abstract

This paper aims to approach the concept of myth from a synthetic and selective perspective, highlighting a series of theoretical and interpretative elements that constitute, in fact, the complexity of this notion. In this regard, the present analysis seeks, from beginning to end, to trace an interdisciplinary and transversal conceptual framework, integrating perspectives from the philosophy of culture, anthropology, structural semiotics, and mythology, the last one being regarded as the principal horizon of reference. Beyond the introductory section, which presents various definitions of myth, more or less general, this paper also focuses on an implicit exploration of the concept’s internal structure. This allows for a closer examination of those elements that ensure, in essence, the perpetuation and continuity of a myth over time. Concretely, by valorizing the reflexive vision of Lucian Blaga, the study emphasizes from the outset the intrinsic connection between myth and other notions such as abyssal categories, stylistic factors, stylistic matrix, and the creative unconscious. Moreover, within this analytical endeavor, the process of structural radiography to which the myth is subjected primarily takes into account Claude Lévi-Strauss’s vision, according to which the essence of the concept resides precisely in what the theorist himself called a simultaneity of temporal character, namely, the capacity of a myth to exist both diachronically and synchronically.  Fundamentally, this aspect supports what we might consider, at a strictly cultural-semiotic level, the interferential identity of myth. In the same vein, by continuing and even enriching the temporal criterion, the paper evokes another relevant theoretical perspective, that of the Romanian ethnologist Romulus Vulcănescu, centered on the concept of mythical chronotope and on the idea of mythopoetic imagination. When considered together, these two aspects enable the expansion of any mythical imaginary, especially if we refer to Vulcănescu’s systematized temporal duality, concretized in the antithesis between diurnal time and nocturnal time. Furthermore, in order to complete the notion of the mythical chronotope, Vulcănescu’s view is complemented by that of Mircea Eliade, though this time through the lens of another fundamental opposition between profane space and sacred space. Advancing within the parameters of this analytical-interpretative approach, the paper also examines the implications of the semiotic interdependence between myth and ritual. Thus, following Luc Benoist’s perspective, one may understand that any ritual represents the symbolic animation of a myth, a process through which the human being is situated within another ontological, archetypal dimension of the ab origo type, thereby inevitably sustaining the permanent nature of myth.