Referencial Fiction and Ritual Poetics: for a Pragmatics of Myth (Sappho 27 and Bachilides 13)

Abstract

Does myth in general and Greek myth in particular constitute a fiction? From the indigenous point of view and that of modern anthropology, the answer is no. For the Greeks, the writings on the conflicts between gods and heroes constitute ancient history and history concerning the founding of civic communities. For historic anthropology, that supports itself on discourse analysis, myth only exists in and through poetic forms that fix pragmatics for this very reason, in a value of practical truth. Thanks to the reading of two Greek poems that correspond to sung performances of the ritual type, we can show that the ways of enunciation of the heroic stories offered by these poems refer to the hic and nunc of their interpretation and, consequently, to the circumstances of their production whether they be religious, political or cultural. The possible world that they describe, through an interposed enunciative and poetic reference has an impact on the cultural community from which it emerges which is due to the artistic work of the creating poet.