Alexei F. Losev’s Mythology of Music as a Development of the Hermeneutics and Sociology of Music

Alexei Losev’s doctrine of myth is closely related to his interest in onomatodoxy [imyaslavie], a religious and philosophical school of thought that was developed by the early twentieth century, while being rooted in the Eastern Orthodox thought of Byzantium, namely in the fourteenth-century doctrine of energy (knowledge of the essence of God through its energy), formulated by St. Gregory Palamas. Losev understands myth not as a fiction but as a substantial reality and corporeality; it is the essence of a person represented in a word, a picture, or a sculpture. Thus, Losev regards philosophy, mythology, and aesthetics as a single whole. Artistic form, according to Losev, has a personal being and lives through and changes the course of history. For Losev music is not an exception here. This chapter investigates a lesser-known aspect of Losev’s work, namely his philosophy of music, which he developed in both scholarly and literary works.