Mythology
editAccording to American mythologist Joseph Campbell, it can be summed up as “other people’s religion."
His near pop-star status often discredits him in erudite circles, leaving many scholars to disagree with Campbell’s theories. Still, no other scholar has given "mythology" a more clear, concise and less-refutable definition than this one.
Classical scholar and professor Elizabeth Vandiver, who admits her personal dislike of Joseph Campbell, explains more laboriously that “Mythology is a canon of stories created by a culture and passed down through the generations of that culture.”
She goes on to say that it is mythology, or myth, when it is supernatural or fantastic in subject and style, and that it must talk of a culture “other than one’s own” (here we are back to Campbell’s “other people’s religion”).
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-is-mythology-what-is-myth-2011-5#ixzz3ZAd5PuiG
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