Littérature comparée et anthropologie :le questionnement des méthodes mythocritiques et mythanalytiques

The novelty of this study consists in its questioning of the mythocritical and mythanalytical methods as the founding premises of comparative literature and the anthropology of the imagination. Through myth criticism, anthropology rediscovers the plural imprints in a work of art, seen as a return to the “symbolic character” of human nature. A mythocritical reading tries to emphasize the mythanalytical nucleus or the “mythical pattern” in a story (an oral or a written text). Through the mythocritical approach we can obtain proper results regarding the profound structures of a work. Mythanalysis tries to sketch the great directive myths of historical moments and of the types of groups and social relations. Mythanalysis enables the researcher to discover the plural totality of histories and cultural developments. The mythocritical and mythanalytical methods contribute to establishing the institution of mythodology, which re-positions anthropological knowledge closer to symbolic logic, through a return to the creative matrix of tradition, which is the only source capable of revalorizing man’s science.