Allegory. Personification. Mythopoeic thought. The term[edit] The term mythopoeic means "myth-making" (from Greek muthos, "myth", and poiein, "to make"). A group of Near Eastern specialists used the term in their 1946 book The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man: An Essay on Speculative Thought in the Ancient Near East, later republished as the 1949 paperback Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man.[1] In this book's introduction, two of the specialists, Henri and Mrs. H.A. Frankfort, argue that mythopoeic thought characterizes a distinct stage of human thought that differs fundamentally from modern, scientific thought.
Mythopoeic thought, the Frankforts claim, was concrete and personifying, whereas modern thought is abstract and impersonal: more basically, mythopoeic thought is "pre-philosophical", while modern thought is "philosophical. "[2] Because of this basic contrast between mythopoeic and modern thought, the Frankforts often use the term "mythopoeic thought" as a synonym for ancient thought in general. Myth-ritual theory. Myth and ritual. In traditional societies, myth and ritual are two central components of religious practice.
Although myth and ritual are commonly united as parts of religion, the exact relationship between them has been a matter of controversy among scholars. One of the approaches to this problem is "the myth and ritual, or myth-ritualist, theory," held notably by the so-called Cambridge Ritualists, which holds that "myth does not stand by itself but is tied to ritual.
"[1] This theory has never been demonstrated; many scholars now believe that myth and ritual share common paradigms, but not that one developed from the other.[2] Overview[edit] The "myth and ritual school" is the name given to a series of authors who have focused their philological studies on the "ritual purposes of myths In the 1930s, Soviet researchers such as Jakov E. Following World War II, the semantic study of myth and ritual, particularly by Bill Stanner and Victor Turner, has supported a connection between myth and ritual. E. Mythopoeia.