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In narratology and comparative mythology, the Rank-Raglan mythotype (sometimes called the hero archetypes) are narrative patterns proposed by Psychoanalyst Otto Rank and later on amateur antropologist Lord Raglan that lists different cross-cultural traits often found in the accounts of heroes, including mythical heroes.
Contents
The concept of the "Mythic Hero" as an archetype was first developed by Lord Raglan in his 1936 book, The Hero, A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. It is a set of 22 common traits that he said were shared by many heroes in various cultures, myths and religions throughout history and around the world. Raglan argued that the higher the score, the more likely the figure's biography is mythical. Raglan did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at, rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical.
The "Hero's Journey" (or monomyth) is a common story structure explored by anthropologists and mythologists. The concept of a standard narrative archetype of a monomythical "hero's quest" that was reputed to be pervasive across all cultures is controversial. Expounded by Rank as a psychoanalytic approach to myth and later popularised by Joseph Campbell in his 1949 work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it illustrates several uniting themes of hero stories that hold similar ideas of what a hero represents, despite vastly different cultures and beliefs. The monomyth or Hero's Journey consists of three separate stages including the Departure, Initiation, and Return. Within these stages there are several archetypes that the hero or heroine may follow including the call to adventure (which they may initially refuse), supernatural aid, proceeding down a road of trials, achieving a realization about themselves (or an apotheosis), and attaining the freedom to live through their quest or journey. Campbell offered examples of stories with similar themes such as Krishna, Buddha, Apollonius of Tyana, and Jesus. One of the themes he explores is the androgynous hero, who combines male and female traits, like Bodhisattva: "The first wonder to be noted here is the androgynous character of the Bodhisattva: masculine Avalokiteshvara, feminine Kwan Yin." In his 1968 book, The Masks of God: Occidental Mythology, Campbell writes "It is clear that, whether accurate or not as to biographical detail, the moving legend of the Crucified and Risen Christ was fit to bring a new warmth, immediacy, and humanity, to the old motifs of the beloved Tammuz, Adonis, and Osiris cycles."
History
Otto Rank, in 1909, developed a Hero pattern on that was very much based on Oedipus's legend, followed Freudian thought in that the pattern lingered on the Hero's relations with the parents and was limited to the first half of the life of the Hero:
Lord Raglan, in 1936, developed a 22-point myth-ritualist Hero archetype to account for common patterns across Indo-European cultures for Hero traditions, following myth-ritualists like James Frazer and S.H. Hooke:
When Raglan's 22 point outline is used, a Hero's tradition is considered more likely to be mythical the more of these traits they hold (a point is added per trait). Raglan himself scored the following Heroes: Oedipus (21 or 22 points), Theseus (20 points), Romulus (18 points), Heracles (17 points), Perseus (18 points), Jason (15 points), Bellerophon (16 points), Pelops (13 points), Dionysos (19 points), Apollo (11 points), Zeus (15 points), Joseph (12 points), Moses (20 points), Elijah (9 points), Watu Gunung (18 points), Nyikang (14 points), Sigurd (11 points), Llew Llawgyffes (17 points), King Arthur (19 points), Robin Hood (13 points), Alexander the Great (7 points).
Raglan and Rank
Folklorist Alan Dundes has noted that Raglan did not categorically deny the historicity of the Heroes he looked at, rather it was their common biographies he considered as nonhistorical. Furthermore, Dundes noted that Raglan himself had admitted that his choice of 22 incidents, as opposed to any other number of incidents, was arbitrarily chosen.
Folklorist Francis Utley claimed to have demonstrated serious flaws in using Raglan's list for determining mythical or historical nature of any person or account by applying them on definite historical people such as Abraham Lincoln. He claimed that Abraham Lincoln fit all of Lord Raglan's 22 points and that using Raglan's ideas would lead one to conclude that Lincoln was a mythical figure. Another recent historical figure that he claims fit the Hero pattern quite well was John F. Kennedy and William Wallace from the medieval period did as well.
Classicist Thomas J. Sienkewicz did other rankings of numerous Heroes and among those that scored quite high were actual historical persons like Tsar Nicholas II (14), Mithridates VI of Pontus (22) Muhammad (17), Jesus (18), and Buddha (15). Fictional characters such as Harry Potter (8) scored lower.
Hero's Journey (Monomyth)
According to Northup (2006), mainstream scholarship of comparative mythology since Campbell has moved away from "highly general and universal" categories in general. This attitude is illustrated by e.g. Consentino (1998), who remarks "It is just as important to stress differences as similarities, to avoid creating a (Joseph) Campbell soup of myths that loses all local flavor."
Similarly, Ellwood (1999) stated "A tendency to think in generic terms of people, races ... is undoubtedly the profoundest flaw in mythological thinking."
Others have found the categories Campbell works with so vague as to be meaningless, and lacking the support required of scholarly argument: Crespi (1990), writing in response to Campbell's filmed presentation of his model characterized it as "... unsatisfying from a social science perspective. Campbell's ethnocentrism will raise objections, and his analytic level is so abstract and devoid of ethnographic context that myth loses the very meanings supposed to be embedded in the 'hero.'" In Sacred Narrative: Readings in the Theory of Myth (1984), editor Alan Dundes dismisses Campbell's work, characterizing him as a popularizer: "like most universalists, he is content to merely assert universality rather than bother to document it. […] If Campbell's generalizations about myth are not substantiated, why should students consider his work?"