Definition of "mythos"

POLY′MYTHY (S[ubstantive]) in Poetry, a fault in an epic poem, when inſtead of a ſingle mythos, or fable, there is a multiplicity of them.

1760, [John Marchant], “POLY′MYTHY”, in A New Complete English Dictionary, Peculiarly Adapted to the Instruction and Improvement of Those who have not had the Benefit of a Learned or Liberal Education, [...], London: Printed for J. Fuller

[T]he critics above named, define in a general manner a mythos as the exposition of a fact, or of a thought, under the historical form—it is true; but yet, under the form stamped upon it by the symbolical genius and language of antiquity, so full of warmth and imagination. At the same time, mythoses have been distinguished into different kinds. The mythoses of history, that is to say, the recital of real events colored only by the ancient opinions, which confounded the divine with the human, the natural with the supernatural,—also the philosophic mythoses, those in which a simple thought, a speculation contemporaneous, or a novel idea are enveloped.

1845, David Friedrich Strauss, “Natural Explanation of the Rationalists—Eichhorn—Paulus”, in The Life of Christ, or A Critical Examination of His History: [...] Translated from the German, and Reprinted from an English Edition, 2nd American edition, New York, N.Y.: Re-published by G. Vale, at the Beacon Office, 94 Roosevelt Street, page 26

But the most highly gifted of all peoples in poetic insight were the Greeks. They possessed supreme ability in the interpretation of nature as expression of spirit. They have countless mythoses to express the immortality of man and his after-life.

1887 October, W[illiam] T[orrey] Harris, “The Spiritual Sense of Dante’s ‘Divina Commedia’”, in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, volume XXI, number IV, St. Louis, Mo.: G. Knapp and Co., printers; New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton and Company, § 40 (The Sun Myth; its Significance as Physical Description of Mind), page 427

The term cobber [...] is still a part of our linguistic culture, and mateship is still a part of our cultural mythos.

1996, James Lambert, The Macquarie Book of Slang, Sydney: Macquarie Library, page ix

Most of the bad broncos, if mythos is peppered with a slight shake of practicality, were more-likely-as-not just a cavvyard of crow-hoppers.

2011, Bob Alexander, ““We buried him on the side of a road””, in Rawhide Ranger, Ira Aten: Enforcing Law on the Texas Frontier, University of North Texas Press, page 25

Hollywood studios had largely stopped producing the horror subgenre, save for the odd hybrid vehicle (the sci-fi slasher of Species, the cartoonish evil of Leprechaun), and the iconic killers of the ’80s—Freddy [Krueger], Jason [Voorhees], Michael Myers—had either devolved into needlessly complex mythos or unintentional self-parody, and sometimes both.

2017 October 27, Alex McLevy, “Making a Killing: The Brief Life and Bloody Death of the Post-Scream Slasher Revival”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 5 March 2018

Of all the stories that fuel conflict, none affects you more than your mythos of identity—the core narrative that shapes how you see your identity in relation to that of the other side. In a conflict, you are likely to regard yourself as the victim and the other as the villain. You fill in the details of this mythos with personal grievances and accusations. Of course, the other side also sees the conflict through a mythos—and in theirs they are the victim. Unless you transform the fundamental way you relate to each other—your mythos—your conflict will remain.

2016, Daniel Shapiro, “Uncovering Your Mythos of Identity”, in Negotiating the Nonnegotiable: How to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts, New York, N.Y.: Viking, page 139

To get most benefit from the four mythoi, one must avoid making two errors. First, a work embodying the comic mythos may be called comic but should not be confused with comedy since the latter term has too many meanings that are exclusively dramatic. The same stricture applies to tragedy and the tragic mythos. The second error is to assume that a work embodying the ironic mythos is an anti-romance.

1984, Kathryn Hume, “Fantasy as a Function of Form”, in Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature, New York, N.Y.: Methuen; republished Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2014, part III (The Functions of Fantasy: why Use Fantasy?), page 151

In addition to mythoi drawn from myths and fairy tales, romances also employ mythoi derived from chivalric romances.

2011, Laura Vivanco, “Mythoi”, in John Lennard, editor, For Love and Money: The Literary Art of the Harlequin Mills & Boon Romance (Genre Fiction Monographs), Penrith, Cumbria: Humanities-Ebooks, page 76