The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumezil

The acquisition of a exhaustive background in contemporary sociological and/or anthropological theory is akin to Jesuit training. At the end of the day, you know that you don't know and you know that no one else know either, but you put doubts aside, settle on a core set of beliefs, and focus on a topic that provides funding. Although I spend my days measuring discernable patterns associated with categories of understanding recognized by mainstream social scientists, I devote many non-work hours reading about magic and religion. Hence my interest in THE NEW COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY by C. Scott Littleton. Littleton characterizes his book as an anthropological assessment of the theories of Georges Dumezil. In Part 1. Background - Littleton describes the influence of Frazier, Durkheim, Mauss and other members of the French school of sociology. In Part 2, he describes the synthesis that took place as Dumezil studied Roman and Hindi "myths" and became aware of similarities between the two religious systems that led him to form the theory of Tripartition. Dumezil suggested a "three-part" structure could be discerned in Indo-European myths and social organization. Part 3 of Littleton's book includes a discussion based on material from Benveniste, Wikander, Gerschel, Frye, Kuiper, and others who conducted additional research, and either praised or criticized Dumezil's ideas. As a former student of a student of Rodney Needham, I find any discussion of Structuralism as practiced by the French sociologist Levi-Strauss and his followers intriguing. Needham has translated some of Dumezil's writing probably because it is related to structuralism. Regarding this linkage, Littleton says that Dumezil discovered tripartition via "the abstraction of a specific set of structural principles from a specific set of mythic and epical texts. He did not bring to bear a general model, Hegelian or otherwise, of what the I-E ideological structure should be." In Littleton's words, the inductive versus the deductive approach.In a note to the third edition published in 1982, Littleton says in recent years students have asked why anyone cares about Dumezil's ideas. He suggests these notions are important because 3-part thinking underlies the Western worldview [I-E = hegemony] and influences the way conclusions and opinions are informed.

Although currently out of print, The New Comparative Mythology has been required reading in many anthropology and folklore courses for several decades. Littleton was the first scholar to summarize the hypotheses of Georges Dumezil in English. Littleton expanded upon the ideas presented by Dumezil, creating a fabulous sourcebook for theories of folklore and mythology that has been continually updated over the decades. If you can get a copy, I highly recommend owning it, especially if you love the study of myths and myth theory.