Literature in the Elementary School

by Porter Lander MacClintock

First of all, myth is religion, and not art. It is not a thing of mere imagination. It is the explanation or interpretation of some physical fact, some historical occurrence, some social custom, some racial characteristic, some established ritual or worship. It is the religious or emotional response to some influence or activity in the world so impressive or so efficacious as to seem to call for explanation in terms of supernatural agencies.

This explanatory or interpretative stage or aspect of myth may be first historically, or it may not be. It is probably first in most myths in a simple and crude form, which in all developed myths has been enriched and modified by influences from the other stages and aspects. The second stage—or shall we call it merely another aspect—is the assigning of distinct personality and individuality to the agencies assumed to account for events and appearances. Then follows rapidly the interrelations and interactions of these persons, the surrounding of them with friends and subordinates, the building-up of a whole intricate society of divinities after the model of human society—all at first symbolistic and of religious significance. A third stage or aspect is that of the cult, the worship, the establishment of a priesthood delivering authoritative messages, mediating influences to the people, and adding constantly to the body of explanations and interpretations surrounding each divinity. The fourth stage or aspect is that in which it becomes, or becomes identified with, a body of moral doctrines or ethical principles; where the personal divinities, with their qualities, insignia, and associations, are taken as symbols of inner human forces, of moral and social achievement, as expressions of spiritual influences operant in human nature and life.

Let it be understood that in naming these stages or aspects there has been no attempt to place them either in chronological or in logical order, and no intention of saying that they stand apart from one another in an easily recognized distinctness. But, however interlinked and mutually modified they may be, we must in any discussion of myth, be aware of these four sides or steps.

Take, for example, the Greek myth of Apollo. As an explanation of physical phenomena he is light or fire, sometimes specialized as the spirit of the sun. But he is embodied and endowed with a personality; he has social conditions and subsidiary functions assigned to him. As a person he is the son of Zeus and Leto, twin brother of Artemis, leader of the nine Muses, guardian of pastured flocks and herds, as Artemis of the wild creatures who feed or frolic by night. As his worship spread and deepened, there gathered about him many other functions—he was the god of healing, of music, of law, of atonement; and many tributary and subordinate divinities were associated with him in all these activities. There gathered into his myth also an enormous and complex body of stories, romantic and mystical, explanatory and prophetic—stories of adventure, of contact with the other gods, of sojourns with men, of pilgrimages to unknown regions; some of them merely romantic, some of them symbolistic, many of them profoundly significant of his powers and offices.

And the myth of Apollo is remarkable for its ancient and elaborate worship. Already when the Homeric poems were made, the shrine of Apollo at Delphos was the scene of an old and complicated ritual. There was even then a temple rich with the accumulated treasure of the votive offerings of generations of worshipers. Priests and prophets, the mystic offices of the Pythia, poets and musicians, stately processions of kings and warriors seeking oracles, combined to maintain the dignity and sanctity of this most impressive worship.

From the very earliest times of which we have record of this myth, Apollo was known to be a spiritual and ethical force at work in man's soul. He was named when men tried to speak of those experiences which wrought expiation and purification. He stood for milder law, for beneficent and benevolent social order, for art, for the songs of the sacred bard, the dirge of grief, the paean of victory, the games—all the gentler things of social culture and personal experience.

In these and in many other ways did the myth of Apollo express the human soul and act upon it. It was a religion—as every developed myth is—to be handled reverently. We might have chosen other examples quite as elaborate and as full of mystic significance—the myth of Dionysus, or the more widespread and deeply devotional myth of Demeter.

Art, too, concerned as it is with everything that promotes or reflects man's spirit, has uses for the elements of myth, and has its own way of handling them. On two of the four steps of myth art, especially literature, finds acceptable material. On the stage named second—the stage in which the influence or power becomes personified, takes on relations to other personified influences, and calls into being other divine persons, his children, his helpers and subordinates, takes his place in a society of divinities, and exercises his more or less specialized function in this society, and also in human life and activity—have the poets and romancers found many opportunities. Adventures and romantic experiences of all sorts easily attached themselves to the person of some divinity, especially as the character of the personal divinities became more and more humanized by the accretion of such tales. And while we find echoes of myth in Märchen and romance, we quite as constantly find apotheosis of merely human romance and adventure in myth. Among the literary peoples, poets and dramatists found it often desirable to use the foundation of this group of divine personalities as the starting-point for a performance purely artistic; it gave them the immense advantage of starting without explanation and preparation, since their audiences could be counted upon to know the divine personages and circumstances; and the further advantage of adding dignity and size to their inventions by accrediting them to superhuman agents. These literary additions, these variations upon the religious meanings, invented for artistic purposes, often gradually incorporated themselves into the myth, and by modern students are not carefully distinguished from the other, the religious and devotional elements. A comic adventure told of Hermes may not have in it any more of myth than a similar story told of Autolycus.

Literature finds much use for material of the mythical kind on what we have called the fourth step. To express and render concrete, impulses, influences, and powers that sway and dignify human conduct, and that form and ennoble human character, the literary artist gladly employs the persons of the great myths. All human experience has elements and influences coming into it from an apparently mystic sphere, that must either be described in abstract terms or embodied in concrete persons and symbols. The latter is ever the method of art. So we find everywhere in literature the use of the great symbols already constituted in myth, or the invention of new symbols for the purpose. Homer would convey to us the sense of the presence that guided and guarded the wise and resourceful Odysseus; so the stately Athene, ages long the goddess "who giveth skill in fair works, and noble minds," comes and goes through the poem. Hauptmann would convey to us in The Sunken Bell, some impression of the magic and the charm of that beauty which lies in the free soul and wild nature, so he invents Rautendelein. But neither Homer nor Hauptmann is priest or devotee interpreting facts or conserving worship. They are artists picturing human life and introducing, each in its place, the various elements of human experience.

It is in regard to this literary use of myth that there exists much confusion, and that most mistakes are made as to the educational use of myth. Many persons who contend that "myths" can be given to children as literature call the Iliad and the Odyssey "myths;" indeed, they are likely to call all legendary stories in which the supernatural element is large "myths;" and they call all romantic stories that have become attached to any divinity "myths."