Paper abstract
The Research on Hero’s Mythos in Ancient China
National Central University, Department of Chinese Literature
Graduator: Lai Yuen-Shan Professor: Sir Li Gue-Jun
Mythos is the most beautiful illusion and incredible method, which explain the universe from the ancient time. Mythos and human being exist at the some time. The human who play a role in mythos is the greatest and called: hero.
There are many kinds of heroes, but they are from the viewpoints of people, that is, the thoughts and values of hymen mold hero’s archetype.
The people from different cultural backgrounds have different thoughts and values. Therefore, it is the most emphasized point that discriminate Chinese mythos from westerns. Deeply speaking, different values on heroes result in different tendencies to adore or imitate.
The numerous philosophers combine people’s thoughts, and when the descendants succeed the thoughts, they have different judgments. Owing to these judgments, the descendants replace the old insights with new values to explain mythos once more.
Campbell (Joseph Campbell) said that, "Dreams are private myths, myths are public dreams." (In The Hero with Thousand Face). Thereupon: The myth -> response thought -> builds up for the philosophy -> philosophy thought again annotation -> new myth production, this circle in the past historical literature, presents with the time change to us.
It is like biological revolution, which the anthropology analyzes that same creatures in different environments will evolve gradually. Therefore, the first Mythos will change into different hero’s archetype because of different philosophical thoughts.
The paper has six chapters: chapter I, I confirm the range of the research, methods to research and hero’s archetype to insure the relation between mythos and philosophic thought.
From chapter II to chapter V, I obtain the materials of hero’s archetype from Chinese mythos to find out why China mythos has this of heroes. In addition, I compare Chinese mythos with western and understand Chinese heroes along with their values.
Finally, I integrate all kinds of significance of heroes and the thoughts the evolvement of Chinese mythos reflect to understand what accomplish Chinese unique culture.
China is the only ancient cultural nation existing the present. The establishment of Chinese thoughts is inseparable from cultural viewpoint and history.
Combining mythos with philosophy force the growth of cultural steady. We can interpret our new mythos in the new society and discover the optimistic side that through thousands of years it still maintain. Chinese heroes can symbolize eternity and idea in new generation, and become human’s adscription of mind along with destination to imitate.