ABSTRACT
The basic premise of the analysis is that a myth must not be interpreted on its own, but only and always as part of a group of myths. To speak of Greek myths as constituting a system' may err on the side of formality, but it is a vitally important counter to those who regard the stories as a random hotch-potch of the inherited conglomerate. Algirdas J. Greimas, the Lithuanian designer of "structural semantics", theorized about the formal properties of narratives as well as the formal organization of discourse in general. Where myths had for many been indications of the primitives' lack of reason, Lvi-Strauss turned the tables and stressed how the myths were logical, thus the title of his four-volume work "Mythologiques". In the 1950s Roland Barthes took the principles of Lvi-Strauss' myth analysis and employed them on "modern myths", for instance styles of fashion as signification, or he set out to disclose other hidden codes of bourgeois society.
