Skip to main content
mythography

mythography

8.9
The study and telling of myths in books, art, or film
  • noun
  • /mɪˈθɒɡrəfi/
  • Specialized
translation icon : mitografía
  • The documentary highlights the mythography surrounding the founding myths of various civilizations.

Examples

  • In their class, students studied the mythography of different cultures to understand their significance in storytelling.

  • However, Soyinka uses Western narratives not to replicate or reinforce Western values, as Fanon suggests, but rather to articulate a new mythography that draws from the indigenous Yoruba tradition.

    Academic text (2008)
  • 5 Myth offers a common realm available and accessible to all, and the labyrinth's iconography and mythography are particularly apposite in a bath context.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Soyinka's telling of the Orpheus story asserts a Yoruba mythography, and the story of Ogun accordingly underpins the narrative.

    Academic text (2008)
  • As Roddenberry optimistically translated the difficult social changes of 1960s America into the easy moral exempla of the first series, so too does he translate the New World Order, the dominance of the multinational corporation, and even the New Age society into a compelling mythography of interplanetary harmony.

    Academic text (1992)
  • The author's latest book explores the intricate mythography present in ancient Greek literature.

Synonyms

mythology
vsmythography
42 5.6

The study of old stories from a culture and their meaning

focuses on recording, writing, or artistic depiction rather than interpretation

How Scholarly

scholarship
  • Formal
43 6.1
analysis
  • Specialized
52 6.8
mythography
  • Specialized
8.9
compilation
9 3.9

Surface Forms

mythography singular
mythographies plural

Morphology

mythography = myth (semi-transparent) = myth + graphy

The word is built from myth plus the scholarly suffix -graphy, but the specialized sense of writing or depicting myths is not fully predictable for all learners.

Etymology

Mythography starts with myth meaning 'story' or 'legend' and ends with -graphy meaning 'writing' or 'recording', just like in photography or biography. So mythography means the writing, recording, or study of myths, which is why it describes books, art, or work that tell old stories.