Mythical Character Research Articles

Trois thèses sur le Rāmāyana

Comparé auMahābhàrata [Mhbh.],leR¯māyanade Vālmīki[RV.]se caractérise d'abord par ses dimensions plus raisonnables, quoiqu'il occupe près de deux mille pages dans la traduction française d'Alfred Roussel, et par son unité d'action beaucoup plus nette : l'essentiel du poème est consacré aux aventures et aux exploits de Rāma auquel Laksmana, son frère, et le singe Hanumān apportent leur aide constante et dévouée. Certes leRV.présente quelques digressions greffées sur la matière centrale du poème, mais, bien moins nombreuses que chez son gigantesque voisin, elles sont limitées aux livres I et VII.

Ermione

Ermione, the title of my play, was also the name of the monkey who performed with me in it. It was originally the name of a mythical character, the daughter of Helen and Menelaos; more recently, It was used by Gabriele D'Annunzio in his poem “The Rain in the Pine Forest.” In my play, the monkey corresponded to D'Annunzio's “nymph with the sylvan face” who accompanied him through the metaphorical wood of life.The text of Ermione was comprised of poetry that I had written from the age of sixteen to thirty; the action consisted of experimenting with ideas for a eventual reading of it. The first thing I wanted to test was the actual selection of verses. I read from a notebook, then provided a running commentary in order to create a distance between the time when the poems were written and the time when they were read. By so doing, I was able, at the same time, to minimize this distance by connecting the old poems to a “live” situation, thus making the link between poetry and life explicit. Next, I wanted to test the actions—the theatrical renderings of the poetry that corresponded to the different stages of life.

Lieux sacrés et irrigation : tradition historique, mythes et rituels au Cuzco

Dans mon étude du système des ceques à Cuzco (The ceque system of Cuzco ; the social organization of the capital of the Inca, Zuidema, 1964 ; Wachtel, 1966), j'ai décrit les concepts incaïques relatifs à l'organisation sociale et politique, dans leur dimension historique. Bien qu'il ait toujours été admis que cette tradition historique comportait aussi des éléments mythiques et légendaires, les chroniqueurs espagnols, de même que les chercheurs modernes, ont conservé ce cadre chronologique général, comme hypothèse raisonnable de travail. Selon cette chronologie, à Manco Capac, fondateur mythique de la dynastie inca, succédèrent quatre rois, appartenant à Hurin Cuzco (Cuzco d'en bas) : soit Manco Capac, Sinchi Roca, Lloque Yupanqui, Mayta Capac, Capac Yupanqui, suivis par cinq rois de Hanan Cuzco (Cuzco d'en haut) : Inca Roca, Yahuar Huacac, Viracocha Inca, Pachacuti Inca, Tupac Yupanqui.

“Smerdis” glangeaudi Priem (poisson téléostéen), espèce mythique du Stampien des environs de Corent (Puy-de-Dome)

The mythical character of the species «Smerdis glangeaudi Priem is demonstrated, using mainly lithological, anatomical, morphometrical and field arguments. In fact, this species has been described from a composite hypodigm which truly includes two specimens of Dapalis (=Smerdis) macrurus ( Ag.) from the neighbourhood of Céreste (Alpes de Haute-Provence) and another one of Dapalis (=Smerdis) minutus ( Bl.) from the ancient gypsum quarries of Aix-en-Provence.

Variant Family Forms and Life Styles: Rejection of the Traditional Nuclear Family

We all live by images that are in part myths. The mythical quality of our images of family life stems from two sources. First, the image is idealized and thus never completely attainable; and secondly, the image is partially fictive, thus never exactly representative of reality. Myths are used to guide, judge, and rationalize behavior. Daily life never completely corresponds to the myths one holds; there are only degrees of approximation. The irony is that it is as impossible to live without myths as it is to live with them. Thus, we should not expect to eliminate myths entirely; rather, prevalent myths should be abandoned and replaced with new ones at those points in history when new circumstances and events render too great a breach between approximation and attainment, when actual behavior deviates too far from prevalent myths, and when new views of reality seem more relevant, appropriate, and explanatory for our time. The recent emergence of experimental variant family forms suggests that we have arrived at such a point in history. The myth of the idealized nuclear family has become untenable for an undetermined proportion of our society, including both those individuals living in nuclear families and those opting for experimental variant family forms. Some hold to the idealized image but, uncomfortable with the behavior expectations it carries, feel guilty or demeaned by their behavior and actions and in somie cases live clandestine second lives. Others speak out against this particular myth and are more candid and

Emily Dickinson's Valentines

making of an artist such as Emily Dickinson, unpublished and posthumously discovered, is especially mysterious. Dickinson's habit of not dating her poems has rendered the whole question of her development particularly troublesome. Because of the absence of a significant corpus of apprentice poetry, and because of the almost mythical quality of her experience, most studies of her development have focused primarily on her personal life. David T. Porter's The Art of Emily Dickinson's Early Poetry, the most thorough attempt to examine the development of her style, concentrates quite naturally on the period 1858-62. Porter begins in 1858 because the standard Johnson-Ward chronology identifies only five poems for the period before 1858. However, a careful reading of the poet's letters indicates that Dickinson was, indeed, writing poetry before 1858, that she was showing her poetry to friends, and that the five identifiable poems of her early apprenticeship are but emblems of a larger body of work.' Of the five surviving poems of Dickinson's youth, the most ambitious are two comic valentines. These poems are engaging emblems of her early humorous verse and of that comic bias which yielded the witty conjunctions of her art.2 Her valentines, to the extent that they have been discussed at all, are usually described as ingeniously conventional.' But if we

Perry Miller's Rehabilitation of the Puritans: A Critique

In the era between the Civil War and the Depression the mythical character called the “American Mind” was troubled. All was well during the day when prosperity and success faced him at every turn, but at night he would sometimes dream of his childhood and awake feeling strangely uneasy. His analyst explained that this tension was the product of latent guilt feelings and suggested for therapy that he read himself to sleep with recent studies of the oppressive effects of Puritanism on young national minds. Turning to these works, the “American Mind” found that the analyst had been quite right. The source of the guilt feelings, he discovered, was an irrational phase of his development called the Reformation. This phase had been dominant when he lived in New England (he since had moved to the Midwest), but he was assured that the latest scholarship had discovered its influence to be harsh, grotesque, superstitious, narrowminded, illiberal, and worst of all intolerant.1 The problem was, one expert informed him, that this era “was unleavened by the spirit of the Renaissance.” Another observed that the Reformation attitudes were a “subtle poison” flowing thorugh the veins of the entire social organism. Still another implied that the “splendor of the Renaissance” had been delayed three hundred years by Reformation intolerance. Convinced that the open-mindedness of the Renaissance was healthier than the irrational bigotry of the Reformation, the “American Mind” of this era began to feel easier about his past. He resolved to tolerate everyone, except of course his more conservative enemies whom he damned as “Puritan.”

The Role of the Independent in the U.S. Oil Industry

"Independent" Difficult to Define A precise definition of an "independent" oil producer is difficult because he actually defies description. The usual measurement is that he is a non-major, which then brings up the problem of where "majorhood" sets in on a scale of barrelage, income, degree of integration, etc. The literature and legend of the industry abound with fabulous stories of a daring, colorful, venturesome breed of American businessman known as the oil independent and wildcatter. A number started enterprises which today are known as major companies. One of the Society's great patron saints and now elder statesman, John Suman, used to say that when he started out before World War 1, "The mark of a real independent that did a good job was one who had an automobile about a block long, a diamond stick pin, a big bull-dog and a kept woman". Unfortunately, except for a change in some of the status symbols, this type of mythical character still persists in the folklore of our industry and in that of the general public. One economics professor has said of independents, "The independent, as the non-integrated producer is called, developed into a veritable institution - a typically American phenomenon. The blinding success of the lucky ones hides the tragedy of many losers and large losses". He said also, "The unique feature of the American petroleum industry is the existence of the thousands of independent producers of crude oil, large and small. These represent a basic element of the industry nowhere except in the United States and in Canada. They not only constitute a unique feature of the petroleum industry in North America but materially affect the position and policies of the large integrated companies. Their mere presence indicates that integration in the petroleum industry of North America is decidedly limited. The more or less complete self-sufficiency in basic raw materials which is typical in other basic mineral industries simply does not exist in the mineral petroleum industry of North America."

Autobiographies of former mental patients.

Many years ago one of us was introduced by a senior colleague to Thomas Hennell's fine book, The Witnesses (23), and so began in a desultory way to collect accounts of their illnesses written by mentally ill people. We have found that many people know a few books of this genre and speak warmly about their usefulness. One gets the impression that these books are unobtainable. In 1956, after reading Hunter's and MacAlpine's (44) translation of the Schreber Memoirs, and later Schizophrenia, 1677 by the same authors, which consists of Haitzman's account of his illness, we realized that these books had played and could play an important part in the development of psychiatric theory. Indeed, the psychoanalytic theory of schizophrenia derives from the Schreber Memoirs and, although Hunter and MacAlpine rebuke Freud for his extremely selective use of those memoirs, they do not suggest that any systematic study of these writings would be valuable. Psychiatrists of many different persuasions have been given to examining a host of historical, literary, and mythical characters from Moses to Popeye the Sailor; but so far we have been unable to find any systematic study of this uniquely valuable body of information provided by the sick themselves.

Some Uses of Classical Mythology in the "Soledades" of Góngora

Gongora's Soledades come fittingly to an abrupt end with four lines each of which is a periphrasis for a mythical character, together outlining a story told by Ovid in 188 hexameters of the Metamorphoses and which form in the context an elaborate periphrasis for a screech-owl. The mythology, the periphrases, the conciseness, the allusion—and the elegant antithesis it permits—and the Ovidian provenance are all typical of Gongora's art, more obviously perhaps in this work because of its length, but present consistently throughout the whole of his poetic production. In view of the dimensions of the most recent work on Gongora's sources, it is clearly not the purpose of this article to attempt to attribute or to identify the very many instances of his use of material from classical sources, nor to probe the extent of his borrowings from any one classical author. The intention here is to consider in what form these reminiscences appear in the Soledades and to what purpose Gongora puts them in his great poem.

Captain F. S. Barnwell

For US in the early evening of life, who have witnessed the development of aviation since the Wright brothers flew in 1903, for us, it is hard—and a little sad—to realise that some of our great pioneers are already becoming almost mythical characters. They were our personal friends with whom we worked most happily; yet, to the young men of today, who are now carrying, or are about to don, high responsibilities in the aeronautical world, they are indeed just names. And so it is fitting that the Royal Aeronautical Society should have inaugurated these Memorial Lectures, of which this is the third. I am deeply sensible of the honour and responsibility which have fallen to me by the choice of the Bristol Branch to pay this first tribute to Captain Barnwell. May I say at once how indebted I am for so much of the detail of this appreciation to Mr. C. W. Tinson, who served with Barnwell for most of his career at Bristol; to Mr. C. H. Barnes, who has written the history of the Bristol Aeroplane Co.; and several other “ old hands.” It is significant that in all my conversations with them, they referred always with obvious affection and deep respect to “the old man.”

Recent Development of P'yongyang, Korea

rT HE city of P'yongyang (or Heizyo) has dominated northwestern Korea for over three thousand years. At a place where river and hills offered protection in olden times, modern industry and other urban functions find suitable conditions for expansion. The immediate hinterland of the hills and plains of the Taedong (Daido) river basin have played a large role in the development of the city, but in these days the city is serving an ever enlarging sphere of influence in the Far East. P'yongyang is favored by an advantageous physical base upon which to develop. The city is located at the confluence of the Taedong River with a small tributary. Outcrops of metamorphic and hard sedimentary rocks have provided solid foundations for the old walls and gates; on alluvial plains along the rivers, modern factories require extensive piling. The climate is modified humid continental. Location at 39 degrees N. Latitude and nearness to Asiatic monsoon pressure centers result in marked seasonality. Average monthly temperatures range from 18 degrees F. in January to 75.8 degrees F. in August. Yearly precipitation of 36.3 inches is controlled largely by cyclonic storms which pass over the area from the west throughout the year, and convectional storms of the hot summer months. These disturbances of the monsoon -air drifts cause more rainfall in summer when the air is moist and warm. Maximum precipitation comes in July, 9.6 inches, minimum in February, 0.6 inches. P'yongyang has a history of settlement which reaches far back into legendary times. A mythical character, Tangoon, tentative 2333 B.C., is supposed to have had a capital among the hills to the east of the city. Kija, a Chinese sage, brought 5000 settlers and established himself on the level lands near the junction of the rivers in 1122 B.C. and according to legend was the real founder of the city. Chinese influence remained strong through the following centuries. Two thousand years ago a thriving colony, with a population estimated by grave mounds to have been 1,000,000, was centered across the river to the south. From 918 to 1392 A.D., P'yongyang was the capital of a kingdom which embraced much of northern Korea and southern Manchuria. The

The Significance of the Title in Apuleius' Metamorphoses

When we read the title in ancient books we naturally think of a work like that of Ovid, a work containing a fairly large number of separate myths, generally quite short, and relating, in almost every case, to some ancient and frankly mythical character. The of Ovid, the MEraliopofXc'o-ewc 2vva,7ywy of Antoninus Liberalis, and a short list in Westermann's Paradoxographi Graeci are, I believe, the only published remains of this literature. Other books entitled Metamorphoses are known to us from citations in Antoninus, Suidas, and the grammarians, under the names of Parthenius, Didymarchus, Nestor of Laranda, Theodorus, and the sophist Hadrian. To be sure, some of these are otherwise mere names to us, but it is nevertheless certain, from the manner in which they are cited, that their books dealt with the same sort of material as Ovid's. Among other books of the same class, though with different titles, may be mentioned the earlier works of Nicander ('ErEpoLov,i4Eva), Antigonus ('AXXotL.o-els), and Boius ('OphLOo'yovta), from some of which Ovid undoubtedly derived suggestions and material for his own work. Now obviously all of these books belong to a definite category. They represent a distinct and well-defined literary tradition centering about the title Metamorphoses. Their purpose was no doubt often artistic and epideictic, for many of them were written in verse. But they also had a didactic purpose. They were intended to familiarize the budding rhetorician with classical mythology, to provide him with a handbook of the stock materials indispensable to the professional sophist.' In view of this literary tradition, anyone reading Apuleius for the first time experiences some surprise; for he finds that Apuleius' work differs toto caelo from other books of the same title. Instead of

Primitive Culture*

Primitive Culture*