Myths fascinate on several levels. They are imaginative stories that have magic appeal. Moreover, the sophisticated scholar can see by their imagery they are able to capture the essence of some of humanity’s most important experiences, including how people came into being, their relationship to the world around them, and death. Apparently every society develops a body of myths in order to understand these basic mysteries of life.Even though there is no way to prove anything of truth about the human condition. In her book about creation myths, for example, Marie Louise von Franz says that the metaphors are based on imagery either from people’s own experiences or from the primordial images of their psyches, 1 and both W.J.T. Mitchell and Elizabeth Abel suggest that the same imagery is often found in art forms even though the actual subject may not be the same.2 A comparison of the two forms of expression would result in a very valuable study to discover the “truths” expressed in the metaphoric imagery that primitive societies have left us in their art and in their mythology.
1Marie-Louise von Franz, Patterns of Creativity Mirrored in Creation Myths (Zurich: Spring Publications, 1978), 5; quoted in Roberta H. Markman, “The Metaphoric Vision in Mythology and Art,” master’s thesis, California State University Long Beach, 1982, iv.
2W.J.T. Mitchell, “Spatial Form in Literature: Toward a General Theory” and Elizabeth Abel, “Redefining the Sister Arts: Baudelaire’s Response to the Art of Delacroix,” both in The Language of Images, ed. W.J.T. Mitchell (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 41, 271; quoted in Roberta H. Markman, “The Metaphoric Vision in Mythology and Art,” master’s thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 1982, iv.
“This is a paraphrase, for the writer here has followed the source, sentence by sentence and idea by idea but has used his or her own words. There is value in doing this but remember that you must not alter the sense of the original.
Also remember: although the words in a paraphrase may be truly your own, the thoughts and opinions are not; therefore you must acknowledge your indebtedness to the thinking of the original writer by giving your source in a parenthetical reference or footnote.
REMEMBER: Of the three preceding examples, only the paraphrase could be used without quotation marks, and even it would require documentation. THE OTHER EXAMPLES WOULD BE CALLED PLAGIARISM EVEN WITH DOCUMENTATION.”
Markman, Robert H, et al. 10 Steps in Writing the Research Paper. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc, 2001.