THERIOMORPHIC MODELS IN MYTHOLOGICAL EXEGESIS: SATYR, CENTAUR, CYCLOPS

Abstract

From the beginning, through to Antiquity and the Middle Ages, mankind has started from a belief in the existence of a substantial soul. Belief in a spirit substance gradually receded, giving way to a spirit wholly dependent on matter and strictly material causes. The human psyche does not easily adapt to the times, and, despite humanity's breakthroughs and changing conceptions regarding life and the world, the nucleus of magical thinking has continued to exist and manifest itself incongruously relative to modern circumstances. Antiquity offers a variety of examples in representing mental illnesses (both in primary historical accounts and literary writings). Homeric texts contain multiple events and characters awash with psychopathological manifestations. This article proposes a paradigm on the exegesis of narrative myth from a double perspective: philosophical and psychological. A Greco-Roman mythological system of reference is used, centered on characters with a theriomorphic, hybrid, and/or double/mixed (human-animal) structure: satyr (Pan), centaur (Chiron, Nessus, Pholos), cyclops (Polyphemus). The concepts of dipsychism and identity dissociation are analyzed from the archetypal perspective of C.G. Jung and the philosophical and psychological perspectives of J. Radden and J.P. Dauwalder. The main claim of this thesis is an underlining of the timeliness and relevance of myth in the process of self-knowledge and of defining the complex architecture of the collective imaginary.