The Logic of Cosmogony

Abstract

Abstract It has often been assumed that cosmogonic myth, i.e. tales about the origin of the universe, are the very centre or even the essence of mythology. Take the definition of myth in the recent Encyclopedia of Religion:‘A myth is an expression of the sacred in words; it reports realities and events from the origin of the world that remain valid for the basis and purpose of all there is.’ ‘Origin of the world’, in relation to ‘all there is’: these are the central concepts of cosmogony, which would thus become the general matrix of myth as such. I, for one, would leave the notion ‘sacred’ out of the definition of myth, and would rather take ‘traditional tale’ as a starting point: myths are traditional tales with special relevance, traditional tales with a secondary but important reference. For illustration we may refer to collections such as Hesiod’s Theogony and Catalogues, Apollodorus’ Library, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In these corpora, however, cosmogonical myths make up only a very small section of the whole--for example, only 84 lines out of the I 5 books of the Metamorphoses. Other topics are far more common: myths about genealogies, migrations, foundations of cities, the establishment of culture, and the origins of rituals, especially initiation and sacrifice. This is a rough enumeration of the themes of myth with regard to the tales’ reference, the signifi,e; if we try to make distinctions by the signifi,ant, the tale types, we shall find the great favourite to be the quest, taken as the form of narrative by Vladimir Propp and his followers. Its most thrilling variety is the combat tale; in addition, there are tales about sex and progeny, tales of deceit and deception, ‘trickster’ stories; migration tales too may be a separate type.

Cite this

Walter Burkert (1999). The Logic of Cosmogony. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198152347.003.0005

@article{walter1999the,
  title  = {The Logic of Cosmogony},
  author = {Burkert, Walter},
  year   = {1999},
  doi    = {10.1093/oso/9780198152347.003.0005}
}