Brief Autobiography:
Claude Levi- Strauss is a famous Frrench Anthropologist that is commonly referred to as the founder of structural anthropology. Levi-Strauss was born on November 28, 1908 in Brussels. He studied law and philosophy at the University of Paris. In 1935 he decided to join the French cultural mission to Brazil and taught at the University of São Paulo until 1939. During the Holocaust Levi-Strauss fled to New York City and taught at the New School for Social Research. Then in 1950 he became the Director of Studies at the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes, and then proceeded to become the Chair of Social Anthropology at the College of France. Levi-Strauss has used the methods of linguistics to examine all societies. He has also written three books, which helped to advance his popularity because of his rejection of history and humanism. He considers culture to be a system of symbolic communication, and also states that mythical or magical beliefs only come into play when people need to feel a sense of control over events where the outcome is uncertain. He also pointed out that the modern view of primitive cultures was simplistic in denying them a history. The categories of myth did not persist among them because nothing had happened and as he stated “it was easy to find the evidence of defeat, migration, exile, repeated displacements of all the kinds known to recorded history. Instead, the mythic categories had encompassed these changes.”
Mythical Structuralism in Relation to Beowulf:
Claude Levi-Strauss explores and explains why myths from all different cultures in the world seem so similar. Levi-Strauss analyzes this realization by looking at the structure of myths, rather than the content of these overlapping myths. According to Levi-Strauss a myth is both historically accurate by being set in a time period, as well as being timeless because it is a language in itself. The mythical story of Beowulf fits into both these descriptions yeah because it is set in Denmark and Geatland around 700 to 1000 A.D., and it is a timeless story because it has a struggle and a hero. There have been countless mythical stories just like Beowulf where man must fight a gruesome battle to save others and become the hero, such as Braveheart. Levi-Strauss structialist ideals break down myths into mythemes so one can interpret myths in multiple ways so the all relate to one another structurally.
Great Links for futher information:
More in depth information on Claude Levi-Strauss
More Information on Mythical Structuralism
More information on Structuralism
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