Article

Name: ABOUT THE CORRELATION OF MYTH, EPOS AND NOVEL

Authors: T. S. Simyan

Yerevan State University, Armenia

In the section

Abstract: The present article describes the relationship between myth, epic and the novel based on theoretical literature. The delineation between genre features and typological description is based on the principle of Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead described in the joint work «Principia Mathematica», the hierarchy of properties, i. e. the distinction of individual objects from their properties, the property of the subject from the property of property, and the property of property from property’s property, etc. Thus, we deal with a hierarchy of properties that can be used to deduce typological series. The formulated problem is described according to the mentioned principle. The myth is presented as an ahistorical phenomenon, which freely crosses all (genre) boundaries and penetrates like a «virus» into different «organisms», semiotic systems, and can be detected and described only under a professional’s «microscope». However, the problem also lies in the fact that the myth is mutating, just like a virus, undergoing mutation under the influence of external factors. The empirical material (Th. Mann – М. Bakhtin) showed that the transition from the epic to the novel is an irreversible process. The reasons for this process are the historical, mental, composite, psychological, narrative, modi of the phenomenon.

Keywords: myth, ritual, ceremony, epic, novel, typology, hierarchy of properties, literary modes

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