Hylistics

It has been suggested that this article be merged with Hyleme. (Discuss) Proposed since May 2024.

Hylistics (from the ancient Greek ὕλη hýlē "wood [in the sense of 'raw material'], substance, matter") is the scientific study of narrative materials (Erzählstoffe). It defines itself as a transdisciplinary method of narrative material research, which is primarily used in the context of myth research. Closely associated with this is the concept of the hyleme.

The basis of hylistics is the distinction between a medium and the narrative material adapted in it.^[1] A material can be concretised in different media (e.g. text, image, oral tradition, film, dance or theatre play). The boundaries of the medium do not have to represent the boundaries of the narrative material - rather, a medium can encompass several materials (e.g. Ovid's Metamorphoses) or only outline or incompletely narrate a subject (e.g. an episode of the Trojan War in Homer's Iliad). With the help of hyleme analysis, a narrative material can be approximately extracted from a medium. The same material can be adapted in different ways in different media (e.g. the material of the Trojan War in the epic Iliad, the pseudo-historical Troy novel of Dictys or the movie Troy).