Towards a Mythcriticism of Emotions
Since time immemorial, human beings have attributed emotional and affective properties to the material world. The different uses of the four elements bring this to light. Air or fire usually represent constant forms and effects. This is not the case with water (fresh / salt, cold / hot, clear / mudd...
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| Tipo de recurso: | capítulo de libro |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2017 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) |
| Repositorio: | Docta Complutense |
| Idioma: | español |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/19482 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/19482 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | 2-264 Myth Mythcriticism Mythology Emotion Psychology Mito Mitocrítica Mitología Emoción Psicología Mitología (Religión) Literatura 5701.07 Lengua y Literatura |
| Sumario: | Since time immemorial, human beings have attributed emotional and affective properties to the material world. The different uses of the four elements bring this to light. Air or fire usually represent constant forms and effects. This is not the case with water (fresh / salt, cold / hot, clear / muddy water…); and still less with earth, in its infinite potentialities (chemical composition, orographic accidents…). The limitless appearances that the stones can adopt undoubtedly explain the faculties attributed by humankind throughout history. Let us take a look at the lapis lazuli: symbol of power for the Egyptians, medicine to treat melancholy for the Greeks, aphrodisiac for the Romans, liberation of intuition and conscious for the Hindus. Adding to these emotive-affective properties that popular wisdom attributes to particular stones, are the legendary ones—for example, those properties resulting from historical accidents. Think of the curse on the precios jewellery stones. The famous legend set around the Black Orlov, a diamond that supposedly featured as one of the eyes in the statue of the Hindu god of creation in the temple of Pondicherry (India); its theft caused the curse on the thief and its future owners. Thus, this “Eye of Brahma” travelled to Russia, France, and the United States, causing numerous fatal victims (the suicides―real or presumed―of Princess Leonila ViktorovnaBarjatinsky, of J. W. Paris, and of Princess Nadežda Vygin-Orlov), until Charles F. Wilson, its owner in the mid-twentieth century, decided to cut it into three to exorcise the evil… At the risk of falling into simplicity of identifying myths, legends and superstitions, I wish to tackle the study of myth and emotions from an apparently material perspective; emotions and affections that convey them are like level gauges that indicate our vital values. The relationship between myth and emotion is extremely strong and tense: it illustrates our personal identity and our social belonging. |
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