Myth Of Hero Research Articles

Stephen Dedalus as a Mythical Hero: Retelling Myths in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

This paper explores the reappearance of Stephen Dedalus as a mythical hero in modern form as reflected in James Joyce’s novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man using the critical insights of myth critics. This exploration aims to reveal the universality of myth. It claims that in the novel the mythical hero, Daedalus, is revealed as Stephan Dedalus. Stephen’s journey from childhood to maturity with epiphany and transformation resembles the journey of the mythical hero. His struggles to escape from the trap of religion, family, and nationality to be an artist are similar to the struggles of the mythical hero, Daedalus. More specifically, Stephan's psychological development towards a critical understanding of his own society echoes Daedalus' skill development of making wings of feathers and wax. Similarly, Stephen’s motive for escaping to Paris reflects Daedalus’s realization of the urgency of moving to Sicily. This study uses qualitative research design and method of textual analysis to locate the resurfacing of mythical ideas in modern context. Textual data taken from the primary text are analyzed using the theoretical insights of Joseph Campbell and other myth critics, in relation to the ideas of the universality of myth and the role of hero, to explore the issue.

Spiderman’s Body

The essay examines how American superheroes wage their mythological battle against evil as one of metaphysical salvation and redemption. They incorporate fantasies of super-human and super-technological bodied that seek to inherit, realize, and surpass all previous mythic hero figures of human civilization. America is staged as a nation of nations that has reached the end of history and is waiting for Judgement Day. The waiting time is filled by the entertainment industry.

Miłość i wojna, czyli historia stara jak świat w „Amores” II 12 Owidiusza


 
 
 
 The article contains a translation into Polish and an analysis of Ovid’s elegy Amores II 12, which deals with the theme of the similarity between love and war — a recurring motif in his oeuvre. The poet finds justification for his own romantic conquests in tradition, as he refers to a number of legendary kidnappings of women that resulted in wars. With typical self-irony, however, he emphasizes that his own victories are more praiseworthy than those won by mythical heroes, as his triumphs were individual and bloodless.
 
 
 

An Archetypal Reading of The Arabian Nights: Mythic Hero and Monomyth in Selected Stories

The Arabian Nights is a literary masterpiece that has captivated readers for centuries with its magical elements, mythical creatures and traditional patterns of archetypes. This study delves into the underlying similarities and differences among the types of archetypal characters depicted in two tales, “Three Apples” and “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”. The focus is on the notion of mythic hero, exploring the use of archetypal symbols, images, characters and protagonists’ quests to identify the principles of heroism central to their characterisation. The study draws upon Joseph Campbell’s theory of Monomyth, which entails a pattern for the hero’s journey that includes three rites of passage: separation, initiation and return. By examining the journeys of Ja’far and Ali Baba through this lens, we find that both possess essential qualities of a hero in accordance with the tenets of monomyth. Despite their idiosyncratic differences, they are portrayed as ordinary men without any supernatural heroic powers who are urged to reclaim their social status by embarking on an adventure where they go through rebirth, face death and triumph over evil. The findings highlight how the use of mythical elements such as magic and traditional patterns contribute to the perennial appeal of the collection

Средневековый московский миф о государстве и его смысловые актуализации в современности

The medieval state in Rus’ was constituted and symbolized as a Christian institution, and its quintessence was the image of the sovereign. To fill the significant image with meaning, the mythological motif of serpent fighting, the struggle of the Hero with the Enemy, was used. This was demonstrated both by visual representations (icons, seals, coat of arms) and by the official nomination “tsar”, which acquired a special Orthodox mystical meaning. The sacralization of the image of the Russian sovereign and state was based on the Byzantine model of a universal empire, in which the tsar was the vicar of Christ on earth, being his “living” incarnation. As a result, the role of Moscow, this already transcendental state, called by virtue of symbolic continuity the “Third Rome”, and the tsar were associated with the extension of the life of the fourth world Christian kingdom in the context of the coming end of the world. This last kingdom, it was believed in medieval Moscow, was already an established Orthodox power, united in the universe, headed by a truly Orthodox tsar, hence the main political function of the tsar was to protect Orthodoxy from enemies. Thus, on the basis of the construction of the heroic myth, a complete and all-encompassing world of meaning was built, and the political order was legitimized in its ultimate meaning, in its correlation with the divine cosmic order. The ideas of Russian Orthodox theology of the 18th–20th centuries concerning what should be done in the construction of Russian statehood are based on ideas about the God’s chosenness of the Russian people, the religious mission of Rus’ and its tsar, formed during the period of the Principality of Moscow. Meanwhile, the theology of this period also has its own specifics. The new political reality, characterized by the fact that Russia, with the beginning of the church reform of Peter the Great, took the path of state secularization, gives a special tone to discussions about the nature of Russian statehood. The theological thought of this period is distinguished by an attempt to substantiate the need for a return to traditional values, which, according to the authors, constitute the basis of Russian statehood. Particular hope for a return to the “old models” rests with the Russian people, who are assigned a heroic role – to be the savior of the state. Ideas about the mystical nature of the Russian state are updated today through speeches and statements of political and religious leaders, in which political power is represented in mythical-heroic motifs, and Russia appears as a defender of traditional values and world Orthodoxy, a state with a messianic role in the modern world.

The Spartan King Leonidas and the Delphian Prophecy

The article examines the Delphic prophecy, which, as ancient authors believed, concerned the Spartan king Leonidas and was associated with the events at Thermopylae in 480 BC. Herodotus quotes this oracle both in prose and in poetic retelling (VII. 220. 3–4). Researchers have considerable doubts about the authenticity of both versions. We sought to prove that the two versions of the prophecy arose at different times: one, prosaic, and most likely authentic, appeared before Thermopylae, and the second, fabricated in Delphi, probably by order of the royal family of the Agiads, appeared after Thermopylae. It is important to emphasize that the Delphic prophecy, in which the death of the king was declared a condition for the salvation of Sparta, became an integral part of the myth of Leonidas. With the help of this heroic myth, Sparta skillfully transformed the defeat at Thermopylae into a victory for the Spartan spirit. The myth of Leonidas became a central part of the patriotic education of Spartan citizens.

Role of Mythical Heroic Narratives in Parenting of Nepal

Myths and stories are an indispensable part of Nepali society. In this study, I explore the socio-psychological role of mythical heroic narratives in parenting of Nepal. Mythical heroic characters play a major role in developing the initial conscience of young children. Myths are often the first abstract concepts introduced to the children and are done so frequently. Thus, such stories have a lasting impact on the child’s psyche and seem to affect the child until they are old, thereafter passing on the stories to their grandchildren. The purpose of the study is to explore the constructive role of mythical heroic narratives in parenting and articulating those ideas in their child development in Nepal. The research is based on constructive, interpretative qualitative ideas of KII with open-ended questionnaires using purposive sampling and in-depth interviews used as tools and techniques to acquire data. The findings showed that mythical stories have a huge importance in child upbringing in Nepali society. There are ranges of stories told for multifaceted purposes- using fear for disciplining the kids, creating the fun environment, and relationship building, among others. Mythical heroes in the stories seem to have distinct traits and have an aesthetic and didactic purpose based on the intention of continuity of mythical heroic narratives and structures. These also play a part in changing the socio-psychological dimensions of individuals. Hence, the mythical stories are important in child upbringing and development in the Nepali context. These stories are told across cultures, areas, gender and ethnicities, yet carry similar messages of changes of hope and sincerity towards structural values in an individual.

Basil I’s Path to Power according to the Vita Basilii as a Heroic Myth

This paper aims to illustrate how the tradition of Basil I’s rise to power in the Vita Basilii includes elements typical of heroic myths, according to Joseph Campbell’s monomyth scheme. The study presented here will examine how the narrative contains features such as a call to adventure, a series of trials and a motive for return. Moreover, the study seeks to investigate how these universal elements of hero stories have been mythicised by literary devices such as the topoi, text composition, intertextual references or symbolic content coherent with the perception of the ideological role of the Byzantine rulers. Within this framework, the study will aim to explore the morphology of these narratives and reconsider some historical questions with the help of Mircea Eliade’s theory of myth. It will focus on the identity and legitimising functions of the story for Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus and assess its impact on the position of the Macedonian dynasty in the social order and the sphere of political activity.

:Two Sagas of Mythical Heroes: “Hervor and Heidrek” and “Hrólf Kraki and His Champions.”

:<i>Two Sagas of Mythical Heroes: “Hervor and Heidrek” and “Hrólf Kraki and His Champions.”</i>

Implementation of the myth of the cultural hero in the social and political reality of Ukraine

The article analyzes populist trends in the modern social and political space of Ukraine, in particular, the process of introducing the myth of the cultural hero. The methodological foundation is Jungian philosophy, which recognizes that social activity is caused by the motivational forces of the collective unconscious (C. Jung, E. Fromm, J. Campbell). The hypothesis is put forward that the political choice of the electorate is a manifestation of the objectification of the universal cross-cultural myth. During the analysis of the architectonics of the corresponding myth, 11 mythologemes were found, combined into a narrative about the evolution of a prominent person. The presence of these mythologemes in the television series “Servant of the People”, which contributed to the victory of the young actor Vol. Zelensky in the presidential elections of 2019, was traced. It is concluded that the mentioned cinematographic product covertly influenced the electoral position, forming it by means of instrumental labelling based on a myth imprinted in the subconscious.

Reading Devkota’s Prometheus as a Transnational Text: Intersecting the East and the West

This paper reads Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s Prometheus in the backdrop of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, considering the allegiance of a Nepali writer to a Western canon. Devkota, who had access to the literary trends in the West, has attempted to appropriate the Western tradition of portraying Prometheus as a mythical hero in literary works like Shelly’s and has tried to localize the image of the hero to elevate the marginalized status of the oppressed in Nepali society. Prometheus was unbound like that of Shelly’s and thus unlike that of Aeschylus as bound, Devkota projects this mythical hero in the Western mythology as a savior of the voiceless of his society. Drawing on Peter Morgan’s idea of transnational literature which “would identify that point at which two or more geo-cultural imaginaries intersect, connect, engage with, disrupt or conflict with each other in literary form,” this paper examines Devkota’s Prometheus how it intersects the East and the West in terms of the popular myths of two different societies.

Artificial Intelligence: From Talos to da Vinci

Artificial Intelligence: From Talos to da Vinci

Representation of Superheroes in The Character of Alana in The Film Sri Asih

Sri Asih, the first superhero character in Indonesia created in 1954 by R.A Kosasih in comic media, has undergone several adaptations in comics and films with different character variations and story backgrounds. In 2022, Jagat Sinema Bumilangit re-adapted the Sri Asih film using a different approach. The film introduces a new main character named Alana and presents a storyline adapted to the current context. This research purpose is to analyze the representation of superheroes manifested in Alana’s character in the Sri Asih film 2022. The study employs a descriptive qualitative approach and refers to Roland Barthes' theory to uncover the meanings of denotation, connotation, and myth within the Sri Asih film. The research findings reveal 10 scenes that represent superheroes through the character of Alana. The results provide insights into how superheroes are portrayed through the character of Alana in the Sri Asih film. Additionally, the study uncovers the presence of heroic myths in the visual narrative structures of the film. These findings contribute to understanding the adaptation of superhero characters and how they remain relevant to popular cultural trends, attracting fans from generation to generation.&#x0D; Keywords: representation; superhero; sri asih; film; barthes; myth

Образ «грядущего царя» и мифологемы современного эсхатологического монархизма

This article presents a hermeneutic analysis of the key concept of eschatological monarchism, i.e. the image of the coming eschatological tsar, whose accession to the throne is expected at the end of the world’s existence, shortly before the onset of the last apocalyptic events. Such mythologemes are particularly popular among Orthodox fundamentalists, the movement of tsarebozhniki (tsar worshippers), who endow the monarch and monarchy with a special sacred religious status. They commonly hold the idea that the modern Russian Federation is an illegitimate state. The author starts with analysing the modern Russian monarchical discourse, in which two varieties are distinguished: legitimism and eschatological monarchism. The latter consists of Orthodox-like subcultures, characterized by radical antiglobalism; Satanist Masonic conspiracy mythologemes; apostasy of the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate; fight against ecumenism, modernism, crypto-Catholics, information technology, bank cards, documents, methods of encoding information, and modern technology. This phenomenon is based on the nostalgic mythologemеs of the Golden Age, idealizing the Russian Empire and the tsardom of Ivan the Terrible, as well as on the mythologemes of the heroic myth about the tsar as an invincible warrior hero defeating evil forces, and conspiracy mythologemes about the tsar as the only force capable of resisting powerful enemies-conspirators. The sources of monarchical eschatological mythologemes are mainly prophecies attributed, with varying degrees of certainty, to canonized saints or to non-canonized, but widely revered persons, as well as anonymous, pseudonymous and apocryphal texts. The coming eschatological tsar is not considered by the adherents as a successor to the Russian emperors: he is the first and only in his ranks. The nature of his use of monarchical power contains a mythological reference to the image of Ivan the Terrible. The image of the coming tsar is formed by a set of messianic ideologemes and mythologemes, such as “the coming tsar is an invincible military leader”, “the coming tsar will be feared by the antichrist himself”, “the tsar will cleanse the church of apostate hierarchs and various heretics”, “the form of government will be authoritarian and totalitarian”, “under the tsar’s rule, Russia will become the most powerful state in the world” or “under the tsar’s rule, Russia will be a materially poor, but spiritually rich state”.

Apollonius in India: The Vita Apollonii and the Indo-Graphic Tradition

In this article I examine Philostratus’ engagement with the Indographic tradition in books 2 and 3 of the Vita Apollonii. A number of interconnected arguments are presented here. The main argument is that Philostratus carefully adapted details from the Indographic and paradoxographical traditions, allowing him to make witty allusions, both explicit and oblique, to them. This also allowed him to parody the critical doxographic habit of later commentators. Similarly, he sought to invert expectations when it came to the presentation of Alexander and the mythic heroes Dionysus and Heracles, as well as India more broadly. In doing so, Philostratus was able to present a utopian land of the Sophoi (within India) grounded in time and space that could ironically act as source of true Hellenism which Apollonius spread to the West (rather than Alexander spreading it to the East).

Analogical Perspectives on the Comparison between Vǫlundr and Daedalus

Analogical Perspectives on the Comparison between Vǫlundr and Daedalus

The Eye That Is Language: A Transatlantic View of Eudora Welty by Danièle Pitavy-Souques

Reviewed by: The Eye That Is Language: A Transatlantic View of Eudora Welty by Danièle Pitavy-Souques Laura Wilson (bio) The Eye That Is Language: A Transatlantic View of Eudora Welty by Danièle Pitavy-Souques In her touching preface to this collection of Danièle Pitavy-Souques's essays, Pearl McHaney writes that: "The Eye That Is Language: A Transatlantic View of Eudora Welty offers readers and scholars a global perspective of Welty's achievements" (xi). The volume, published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2022, was originally conceived by Pitavy-Souques as a way to collate writings from her decades-long commitment to Welty studies, but was sadly never finished before her death in July of 2019. McHaney worked with Pitavy-Souques during the initial stages of planning for the collection and was supported by Danièle's husband François Pitavy in bringing his late wife's idea to fruition. Bookended by McHaney's introductory remarks and a closing remembrance of Pitavy-Souques's and Welty's friendship written by François, the book now stands as a shining memorial to Pitavy-Souques's inimitable work on Eudora Welty and the achievements of her own life, including the highest French merit Légion d'honneur and the highest Eudora Welty Society accolade, The Phoenix Award. Thinking about the perspective of this collection offers us the chance to consider Welty's art of representation, alongside the way she so often plays with appearances and points of view (visual, moral, political). At the same time, perspective is a common term in visual arts such as photography, painting, and film, all interests of Eudora Welty that are deftly explored in this book. Focusing on the perspectives of this collection emphasizes Pitavy-Souques's examination of what we might call the language that is eyes: that is to say, moments where Pitavy-Souques shows us how Welty viewed, illustrating the multiple perspectives that she wrote both from and about. Explorations pertaining to sight abound in this volume. A word concordance demonstrates that the word see is featured 115 times in addition [End Page 175] to seen 43, sees 28, and seeing 13. Eye or eyes appears 79 times. The first visual tool that really stuck out for me in the work, the mirror, lexically appears 40 times (50 if you include its plural and connected words), as Pitavy-Souques suggests that "Welty used mirror effects quite early," calling this a "modernist feature favored by Virginia Woolf in her short stories and by surrealist filmmakers like Jean Cocteau" (116). The mirror symbol offers readers another chance to interrogate Welty's fictional technique, questioning the accuracy of reflected images produced by layers of metal and glass, a surface that only ever provides a virtual image since light rays never actually cross over in a reflection. In turn, Pitavy-Souques argues that in Welty's work, "the surface functions as a lure; behind the apparent picture or story, there lies another one, much more instructive or disturbing" (111). A reading of Delta Wedding illustrates well such ideas of illusion and false representation: From the first, in spite of its apparent hugeness, the Delta and the plantation appear to Laura [McRaven] as a closed world limited by reflection: the sky mirrors the fields, the name Fairchild refers to the place as well as to its inhabitants, and characters come and go between two identically furnished plantation houses. The black waters of the bayou reflect a house that was never lived in. (117) Twinning and repetition feature often in Welty's work as extensions of the perceived image, with the reflective façades of Shellmound and Marmion working to trap Laura McRaven inside layers of outward appearance, the idealized front-facing image of plantation culture that historically concealed many real horrors. Horror and fascination relate to another key argument that flows throughout the book: the notion of the mythical hero Perseus as a symbol for the artist, indeed Welty herself, who "questions her art in the very moment she is creating it" (11). Given my own particular fondness for the Gorgon myths and Welty's use of Medusa, I was very much drawn to...

The Heroic Myth in Modern Times. The “Star Wars” Franchise

Symbolic language is a particular system of expression that renders an individual’s feelings, and emotions, as well as one’s accumulated psychological experience, as sensorial experience manifests in the outer world. Understanding symbolic language serves as an important tool in understanding the significance of dreams as well as that of archetypal narratives such as myths, be they archaic or modern. Modern artists have searched for new ways of updating the universal content (and implicitly the narratives) in order to present role models that would enable modern individuals to access the transcendent. One such example is the Star Wars franchise and the soundtrack created for it by John Williams from which I choose to analyze „Duel of the Fates”.

Heroic Myth in Educational Discourse of Post-Soviet Kazakhstan

The article contains a study of the representation of the process of joining Kazakh lands to Russia in school textbooks of independent Kazakhstan. The main research optics was the methodology proposed by J. Assman and G. Bordyugov for analyzing ideas about the past.

Methods and techniques of interpretation of mythical and magic characters’ names in Russian folk tales in Persian

The rapidly developing cultural relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia predetermine the importance of studying the realities of Russian culture in teaching Russian as a foreign language. Despite the constantly growing interest of the Iranian reader in Russian fiction, we have not found translations of Russian folk tales. A distinctive feature of fairy tales is the presence of specific monsters and mythical creatures in them. The relevance of this study is emphasized by the fact that the opinions of researchers on the issue of translating these realities are divided: some researchers note that realities are untranslatable, others argue that there are no words that would be impossible to convey in another language. This research work presents methods and techniques for an adequate and equivalent translation of the proper names of mythical creatures that are the heroes of Russian folk tales of a magical nature. The translation experiment was conducted in student classes of the RFL departments of higher educational institutions of Iran. The main methods on which the study is based are the comparative method, the method of linguistic description, and the method of experiment. The students were asked to translate typical sentences, selected by continuous sampling, in which there was a mention of the magical characters of Russian folk tales. The purpose of the experiment is to identify what methods and techniques of translation strategies were used in the process of translating realities that do not have equivalents in the Persian language. Thus, the empirical basis of this study is the interpretation of fragments of Russian folk tales of a magical nature in Persian by students learning Russian as a foreign language. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that it is the first attempt to analyze the method of equivalent or adequate conveyance of national and cultural color of the Russian fairy tales characters into Persian. Based on the experiment, we can conclude that when translating the names of mythical heroes and monsters of Russian folk tales, students resorted to two main translation strategies − foreignization and domestication. Russian students chose the method of phonetic transliteration and transcription as the main method of foreignization, as well as calques that contribute to the preservation of Russian cultural and ethnic specificity and overcoming the difficulties of conveying semantic content and the national color of the mythical heroes of Russian folk tales. The main technique of the domestication strategy used by students is the borrowing of the designation of a fairy-tale character from the culture of other peoples with whom they were previously familiar. The results of our research can find practical application in literary translation in Iran. Theoretically, the material can contribute to the development of the theory of translation of literary texts of the folklore genre, as well as arouse interest in further research among undergraduates and graduate students studying in higher educational institutions of Iran.