A study on the Lévi-

Straussian canonical formula

of myth
Ian Barcellos Ferri de Souza Carmo
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Pedro de Niemeyer
Cesarino
Objectives and
Conduct a study on the evolution of the concept
Method Used of the canonical formula of the myth..

Objectives
Analyze works by other authors,
anthropologists and ethnologists who were
influenced by the concept.

Literature review of several works by Lévi-

Strauss in which the Canonical Formula of
Myth appears and is applied.

Method
Literature review of other researchers who
applied the Canonical Formula to their
research.
 Justification 
• Canonical formula of myth is central to Lévi-Straussian
thought and to the studies of myths in general;
• The Formula delimits the way in which mythical
thinking is structured and how this thinking is universal
to all cultures; 
• It brings questions about our basic assumptions of
thought; 
• It problematizes otherness: the "I and the Other".
 Results obtained: A definition
of Myth
Myth is a form of thought analogous to language, defining itself as a language
with specific properties. 

Such properties can only be understood above the usual level of language and
speech, as they are more complex. 

The myth must be understood not individually, but always in a continuum

and in conjunction with other myths; which encompasses its variations,
insofar as the myth is the capacity to produce variations from the different
variants;
The Canonical • Fx(a) : Fy(b) ∷ Fx(b) : Fa-1 (y)
Formula in its • The formula shows Fx and Fy (function) (a) and (b) contents. 
original form • The fourth term of the Formula represents, according to Lévi-Strauss,
not an analogy (A\B as well as C\D) but rather a dialectical deduction,
a transcendental leap, as the author calls it, which denotes the
movement that myths make to the crossing a geographical, cultural,
ethnic, linguistic boundary. The myth performs a double twist. 
• The canonical formula appears as a tool for condensing and
schematizing the variability and variation of myths. Thus, it is
characterized by encompassing both the variants of myths and the
mythical collective of thought, which combines form and content.
Conclusions
• Myth is defined as variation and as a form of
thought, its movement of variation is explained and
condensed by the canonical formula, which serves
as a tool to demonstrate this variability and
malleability of myths. 

•The canonical formula of the myth condenses the

mental operation that opposes terms and meanings
to each other, in a relationship between form and
content that is capable of transposing ethnographic,
historical-cultural contexts in order to reveal the
capacities of human thought.