CLASS102 Lecture 1: Classics Lecture January 10th.docx
21 Feb 2014
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Structuralism: structuralist theories of myth, vladimir propp. Morphology of the folktale (1928: english translation 1958) Took set of russian folktales, best way to analyze them by their structure. Reduced them to narrative units: russian folklorist. Smallest narrative unit = motifeme (his narrative unit: 31 motifemes in russian folktales, fixed sequence, followed strictly, you combine them to get the stories, myth or folktale. Fixed sequence of motifemes: the quest many stories of heroes (sometimes gods) follows notion of the quest, e. g. Alive/dead: we look at things in duals, we struggle with them, he believed the myths were told to reconcile the opposites, greeks constantly balancing things in their thought processes. We are humans who live in certain time and place and we tell stories because they"re relevant to us now. Acknowledged that we should look at the myths in their context: myth: traditional tale with partial reference to something of collective importance.
