Myth

Paper Summary:

The paper explains that Freud's approach to myth was one of many scholarly approaches of the 20th century that saw in myth timeless patterns and structures for human behaviour (Edelstein 399). This structuralist approach viewed myth in terms of binaries; good, evil, beautiful and ugly with the focus of myth being the resolution of these oppositions (Harris and Platzner 49). In the context of these approaches to myth, this essay evaluates Ovid's story of "Myrrha" from his Metamorphoses in structuralist terms.

From the Paper:

"In the early 20th century the psychoanalytic pioneer Sigmund Freud developed a range of theoretical explanations that identified the origins of human behaviour and particularly abnormal mental states, as lying in the repression of emotions that persist in the unconscious. For one of the most famous of these theories, Freud turned to the ancient Greek myth of Oedipus - the tragic Greek king who killed his father and married his mother - as an explanatory model of infantile sexuality."

More papers on Myth:

• Research Paper # 32181 : "Richard Wagner and Medieval Germanic Myth"
• Analytical Essay # 136322 : "Modern Myth and Society"
• Analytical Essay # 89116 : "Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth"

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