Mything the Study of Myth

Abstract

This article reviews the theories in the European and American study of mythology from 1685 until the present moment. It invokes the beginnings of this modern academic study in the global explorations of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries and traces the synoptic studies of myth in the nineteenth century and the fragmented studies of myth in the twentieth century, ending with critiques of mythology in our own time. The psychological viewpoint of the article argues for making conscious the unconscious perspectives in the study of myth lest myth be used for unintended social, political, spiritual, and personal purposes.