The Function of Myth

The Shapeshifter

There is no final  system for the interpretation of myths, and will never be any such thing. Mythology is like the god Proteus,"the ancient one of the sea, whose speech is sooth." The god "will make assay, and take all manner of shapes of things that creep upon the earth, of water likewise, and of fierce fire burning"                                                           Odyssey,IV, 401,417-418

Mythology has been interpreted by the modern intellect as a primitive, fumbling effort to explain the world of nature (Frazer); as a production of poetical fantasy  from prehistoric times, misunderstood by ages (Muller); as a repository of allegorical instruction, to shape the individual to his group (Durkheim); as a group dream, symptomatic of archetypal urges within the depths of the human psyche (Jung); as the traditional vehicle of man's profoundest metaphysical insights (Coomaraswamy); and as God's Revelation to His children.(the Church) Mythology is all of these. The various judgments are determined by the view-point of judges. For when scrutinized in terms not of what it is but of how it may serve today, mythology shows itself to be as amenable as life itself to the obsessions and requirements of the individual, the race, the age.                                              Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces

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