Classification and Explanation of myths - no agreement among scholars
(different approaches):
- Causal and etymological explanations (Andrew Lang)
- Nature myths (Max Müller)
- Collective mentality of an Age — how people thought (Vico)
- Cultural morphology — expressions of a culture (von Herder)
- Social charters (Bronislaw Malinowski)
- Ritual (Cambridge School - Harrison, Cornford, Graves and later Paglia via Frazer and Freud)
- Invocations of the Golden Age or a past creative era (Mircea Eliade)
- Metaphors and archetypes (Freud and Jung)
- Structuralism (Lévi-Strauss)