十八世纪以前欧洲神话研究的主要途径与方法

The Main Approaches and Methods for the Study of Mythology in Europe before the 18^(th) Century

作为人类最早文明形态之一,神话一直是人类文明史上一个重要的文化现象,它与宗教、哲学、语言学、考古学、民族学、人类学、文学等众多学科发生着紧密的联系。从对古希腊罗马史诗神话,到异域文明中的外邦神话传说,再到犹太教基督教正典中的神话故事,18世纪欧洲学者对神话的研究涉及到哲学、语言学、逻辑学、神学、伦理学、社会学等领域。尽管并没有形成系统的、科学的神话研究理论,但在上述领域中学者对神话所进行的多学科的探索,对西方现代神话学的兴起具有开拓性意义。

As one of the earliest civilization forms, the myth has always been an important cultural phenome- non in the history of human civilization. It has close relationship with religion, philosophy, linguistics, archaeol- ogy, ethnology, anthropology, literature, and many other subjects. From the epic of ancient Greek and Roman mythology to the gentile myths and legends of the exotic civilization, then to the Jewish myths in the Canon of Christianity, European scholars conducted researches on mythology that involves philosophy, linguistics, logic, theology, ethics, sociology and other fields in the 18th century. Although they had not produced systematic and scientific theories, the muhidisciplinary exploration carried out by the scholars of the myth demonstrated a pioneering significance for the development of the research on western mythology in the years to follow.