The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama

The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama

Cover
Author	Lord Raglan
Language	English
Subject	Comparative mythology, folklore, anthropology, drama
Publisher	Methuen
Publication date	1936
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print
ISBN	9780837181387
OCLC	1925975

The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama is a 1936 monograph by Lord Raglan that presents a myth ritualist interpretation of hero narratives. ^{[1] [2]} Raglan argues that the typical culture hero is a sacral king whose life follows a conventional narrative sequence rooted in ritual and kingship. ^{[3] [4]} Raglan identifies 22 beats in legendary hero narratives, known as the Raglan scale, and applies it comparatively to figures such as Oedipus, Theseus, Romulus, Moses, and more. ^{[2] [5]}

The Hero became influential across mythology and folklore and it generated sustained debate about method, comparativism, and historicity in classical studies and biblical scholarship. ^{[6] [7] [8]}

Synopsis

Raglan frames his argument within James Frazer and the Cambridge school myth ritualism. He maintains that myths do not preserve biographies of historical individuals, presenting them as narratives that encode rites of seasonal renewal and sacral kingship and that are shaped by performance and tradition. ^{[2] [3]} He proposes a comparative pattern of 22 recurrent incidents in the life of a hero. The sequence begins with unusual birth and threatened infancy, passes through exile, return, decisive victory, marriage, and rule, and ends with loss of favor, mysterious death, and posthumous reverence. ^{[1] [4]} Raglan treats these incidents as a structured whole rather than as a loose list of motifs. He assigns points when episodes appear in a narrative to show how closely any one hero conforms to the scale. ^{[2] [5]}

Raglan applies the scale to a wide range of mythic traditions. He highlights Greek narrative cycles about Oedipus and Theseus, Roman legends of Romulus, biblical traditions about Moses and Joseph, and medieval materials about Arthur, among others. ^{[1] [5]} He argues that heroes who accumulate many points should be treated as mythic rather than as strictly biographical. ^{[1] [2]} Raglan argues heroes' stories reflect real social roles and rituals, especially how sacred leaders fall from power. He sees ancient tragedies as stories that grew from these cultural patterns. ^{[3] [6]}

Raglan Scale

1. Mother is a royal virgin
2. Father is a king
3. Father often a near relative to mother
4. Unusual conception
5. Hero reputed to be son of god
6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
7. Hero spirited away as a child
8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
9. No details of childhood
10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
13. Becomes king
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
15. He prescribes laws
16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
17. Driven from throne and city
18. Meets with mysterious death
19. Often at the top of a hill
20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
21. His body is not buried
22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs

Raglan scored the following heroes: Oedipus (21 or 22 points), Theseus (20 points), Romulus (18 points), Heracles (17 points), Perseus (18 points), Jason (15 points), Bellerophon (16 points), Pelops (13 points), Dionysos (19 points), Apollo (11 points), Zeus (15 points), Joseph (12 points), Moses (20 points), Elijah (9 points), Watu Gunung (18 points), Nyikang (14 points), Sigurd (11 points), Lleu Llaw Gyffes (17 points), King Arthur (19 points), Robin Hood (13 points), and Alexander the Great (7 points). ^[1]

Reception

Contemporary

On publication in 1936 the book attracted attention among classicists, anthropologists, and folklorists, a reception later documented by Robert A. Segal and William G. Doty. Segal and Doty praised Raglan's wide comparative scope and explicit "hero pattern," but also questioned the assumption that the pattern forms a fixed order and criticized Raglan's point-by-point scoring as a tool for distinguishing myth from history. ^{[2] [6] [4]} Scholars sympathetic to myth ritualism cited the work as an insightful synthesis, while other classicists voiced reservations about demands for uniformity across cultures and about reading literary sources as direct witnesses to ritual. ^{[6] [2]}

Legacy

Scholars, influenced primarily by Robert A. Segal, embraced Raglan's scale as a useful theory for comparative hero work but cautioned its applicability to modern stories, as "for Raglan, hero myths have disappeared." ^[2] Alan Dundes reintroduced the scale to a new generation of folklorists and applied it to biblical materials, arguing that a high score identifies a mythic pattern rather than a historical biography. ^{[8] [5]}

Jonathan Z. Smith and Bruce Lincoln criticized universalizing comparative theories that privilege similarity and erase difference within Western mythic patterns, challenging Raglan-style patterning. ^{[7] [9]} G. S. Kirk rejected monolithic checklist theories that force diverse myths into uniform sequences, while William G. Doty emphasized attention to narrative voice, performance, audience, and social context that motif counts overlook. ^{[6] [4]} Despite these reservations, the book remains a standard reference in surveys of myth theory and in courses that introduce students to comparative approaches to ancient hero narratives. ^{[3] [10]}

References

1. Raglan, Lord (1936). The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama. London: Methuen.
2. Segal, Robert A. (1999). Theorizing about Myth. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN   978-1-55849-194-6.
3. Csapo, Eric (2005). Theories of Mythology. Malden: Blackwell. ISBN   978-0-631-23247-6.
4. Doty, William G. (2000). Mythography: The Study of Myths and Rituals (2nd ed.). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. ISBN   978-0-8173-1005-9.
5. Dundes, Alan (1990). In Quest of the Hero. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-02062-4.
6. Kirk, G. S. (1974). The Nature of Greek Myths. Harmondsworth: Penguin. ISBN   978-0-14-021783-4.
7. Lincoln, Bruce (1999). Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-48201-9.
8. Dundes, Alan (1976). "The Hero Pattern and the Life of Jesus". Journal of the Folklore Institute. 13 (3). JSTOR   3813809.
9. Smith, Jonathan Z. (1990). Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN   978-0-226-76363-7.
10. Littleton, C. Scott (1982). The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil (3rd ed.). Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN   978-0-520-04103-5.