Myth and Vision

Myth is a powerful kind of story which determines a culture's predominant moral understanding ofthe worid. This paper isan attempt to understand how myths genérate such moral visions. Using the standard semiotic división of a subject into its syntax, semantics and pragmatics, myth is examined from eachofthese perspectives in order to show exactly how they wórk together tocréate these visions. Focussing especially on the syntax, that is, the narrativé structure ofthe myth, an attempt is made to show how the classic genre types—romance, tragedy, comedy, irony—each constitute a different moral visión