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Introduction
When we look at the history of Humankind, we come across information that the first symbols appeared in the Late Paleolithic period. Thus, the paintings on the walls of the caves, left over from the culture of hunting and gathering, are interpreted as the first symbolic creation of mankind.
From ancient times, the understanding of the universe, the world, the emergence of esoteric knowledge, and so on realized through symbols. Myths, legends, myths, etc. formed the process of transmission of those symbols and symbolic thinking between generations and cultures. This path, which began with mythological thinking, has passed through various stages of cultural time, and has been able to express its symbolic essence, sometimes insignificantly, sometimes in an extreme way, in the context of the relevant requirements.
"Today we distinguish between the religious and the secular. This distinction would be incomprehensible to Paleolithic hunters, because, according to them, nothing was worldly. It was possible to understand everything they saw and experienced by referring to the original in the divine world”. (Armstrong, 2017, p. 17)
One of the main features of the immortality of myths in world culture and literature is that they can continue to live without violating the core of meaning (Bekirgizi, 2016). Mythological worldview is a visual proof of this and mythical perception of the world is the source of the symbolic language of artistic thought. Man has begun to symbolically understand the real world around him.
Myths are a source for the interpretation of artistic symbols, but also symbolic thought played a role in the creation of the myth itself. According to Losev (1976), all the symbols in the myth are signs, and not all signs are symbols. The scientist notes that the sign of an object or event conveys their meaning, but this meaning is not simple, but an expression of a substrate, perceived object and event, animated, personalized, artistically reflected. Thus, just as not all words are symbols, not all symbols are symbols.
A symbol has a general structure, it has its own principles of creation based on the general structure. Asif Hajili (2002) writes: “During the transition of man from nature, biological existence to culture and social existence, the myth, which was the unique ideology of the first collectives, included all forms of social behavior. Myth, one of the main tools in the socialization of early human communities from the biological level, was connected with historical processes and emerged as a diachronic phenomenon”. (p. 3)
Then, traces of mythical thinking continue to live in the memory of mankind through symbols, especially forming the basis of artistic thinking.
The symbolization of nature through human archetypes begins with a mythical worldview, and the cult of nature takes place. Gafarli (2015), states: “Cult traditions have been passed down from one generation to another through myths. In the Azerbaijani mythological system and beliefs, there are still traces of cults of trees (there are people who still tear off some of their clothes and hang on tree shrines), mountain, rock, water, spring, snake (Snake-Pir), ox, cow, horse, hearth, father, mother, grandfather”.
In mythology, it is possible to come across mythical legends and stories about the symbolic perception of various natural phenomena, elements of space and time, all representatives of the biological and zoological world. “Myth is about the unknown, the unchartered; it speaks of experiences in which we have no words to express them before they are experienced. Therefore, the myth goes deep into the heart of the great silence” (Armstrong, 2017, p. 7). The fact that the archetypes which provide the process of mythization of natural phenomena - the original images contain human mythological views, regardless of place, time, language, race - allows for parallels and comparisons in the broad context of memory, resulting in very broad and in-depth analysis.
Taking this into account the objective of this work is to analyze the symbolic principles in the mythical understanding of nature.
Development
Symbols are essentially a multidisciplinary concept, a category that can be the object and subject of research in various fields of science. The Latin equivalent of "symbolum" is the Greek word συν (sin), which is derived from the singular and βολή (voli) shooting roots, meaning birlikdəμβολον (symbol), which means to throw in knowledge. Sumbolon is a derivative of the verb sumbalein (symballein), which sometimes consists of the morphemes "syn" and "ballein", which means to bring together, to unite, to make whole, to put together, to compare, to explain to each other, as the Greek origin of the word. based on the word. It is believed that the hymn written by Homer in the language of Hermes was first used in writing. Thus, when Hermes meets a turtle, he uses the phrase "μβολον ηδη μοι", meaning" a symbol of joy to me":
“An omen of great luck for me so soon! I do not slight it. Hail, comrade of the feast, lovely in shape, sounding at the dance! With joy I meet you! Where got you that rich gaud for covering, that spangled shell -a tortoise living in the mountains? But I will take and carry you within: you shall help me and I will do you no disgrace, though first of all you must profit me. It is better to be at home: harm may come out of doors. Living, you shall be a spell against mischievous witchcraft; but if you die, then you shall make sweetest song”. (Evelyn-White, 2021)
In Azerbaijani literature, the term symbol is sometimes used instead of symbols. The symbol is an Arabic word that means to express a certain idea with a sign. In a work of art, a word is a symbol that expresses a certain idea in a veiled way. The essence of the symbol is that you formally speak of something (for example, the sea, a storm, a rock) on the surface, but in reality, you mean something completely different. According to the etymological dictionary, Edmund Spencer's allegorical “Faerie Queene”, written in 1590, means that the symbol formally speaks of something on the surface, but in fact means something completely different.
In allegorical genres, especially in representations, there are symbolized objects (animals, objects, plants, etc.). Their essence is not in the image, but in the internal (hidden) content. Araz Gurbanov (2013), described the symbol in his book "Stamps, symbols, assimilations" as follows: "The language of symbols is the universal language best understood by all mankind. It is the language of ancient myths and dreams of our contemporaries, and it is understood at the same level in India, China, New York and Paris”. (p. 14)
Kenneth Burke (1966, 1989), was a man who used, and constructed symbols, distorted and changed them in order to influence and direct them, created the negatives and learned from those negatives using the tools and means he created. It is characterized as a morally corrupt and perfect being, able to break free from its conditions, driven by a sense of hierarchy, but also driven by the thought of order.
The symbolic world is embodied in various forms of human culture, such as myth, art, religion, language, history and science. Man, always uses symbols to understand and make sense of himself and the world in which he lives. As man's knowledge and experience increase, so does his connection with the world of symbols, and human language is the main basis on which this foundation is formed. In the foreword of the encyclopedia of symbols by Gusev (2011), the author states that the world is a whole - a multidimensional, multifaceted, multi-layered being. Each sphere, each area that makes up this majority, is unique, has its own nature and acts by its own laws. The material exemplifies the functioning of the sphere with very different laws from the mental sphere, emphasizes the need for special concepts to translate objects and laws from one sphere of reality to another, and this is the main feature that characterizes symbols. They are mediators-interpreters, space probes sent to the vast abyss of space to receive signals from them.
In fact, Language is always able to interpret the signs and qualities of objects and events, as well as the numerous connections between them. The general opinion of researchers about the cognitive nature of symbols when studying the real world through language is as follows: “In the aggregate, symbolic units determine the linguistic connection between objects under the cognitive analysis of human consciousness (symbolization). The symbolization of allegorical thoughts and levels of cognition is achieved through linguistic-cultural mechanisms. Humans used symbolic units to comprehend the elementary or basic image of the real universe. People use symbols as a means of perceiving the elementary image of the world. … Therefore, symbol units in a language are more known as a linguistic-cognitive model that shows the capacity of human cognition. In general, the word in and of itself is also a symbol”. (Zhirenov, et al., 2016, p. 2844)
Tillich (2000), notes that there are six characteristics in symbols. The first is that the symbol feeds on the reality of what it signifies. The second is that the object indicated by the symbols, that is, the signifier, does not receive a share from the signified. Third, as in various fields of art, it can uncover hidden, unknown layers of reality. Fourth, it is possible to move from facts to different levels through symbols. Fifth, symbols are formed from individual and collective consciousness. Sixth, characters can be born and die. Symbols are, in fact, bridges between the external world and human emotions.
Symbols are, in fact, the means by which man represents the world of objects with meanings beyond language. The age of symbols and symbolic thinking is distinguished by its cultural depth. The interpretation of a symbol in different contexts and in all different approaches also means the interpretation of humanity itself (Tezokur, 2020).
Characters are a broad concept. Characters have roots and are based on uncertain experience. E. Cassirer called man an animal symbolicum, that is, a "symbol-creating creature" because a man himself creates human means - symbols - to connect and relate to the world. A symbol is a form that declares reality; it is unity, emblem, creativity, purpose, cognition, culture, content and so on; is the way that opens or leads to their meanings. Therefore, through the symbolic system he possesses, man loads content into the world around him, and builds a dialogue with the symbolic meanings of things, not directly with himself. "Many common sign systems are completely understandable to everyone” (Ismayilov, 1999, p. 37), he said.
For example, the two sloping diagonal lines, as in primitive times, still signify the beginning of a closed, forbidden area, an arrow sign indicates the direction of movement, and a snake wrapped in a glass. Among the distinguishing symbols of the heavenly religions, the crescent is one of the symbols of Islam, the cross is Christianity, and the shield of Mogen David - the Prophet David (in Islam - the Seal of Solomon) is one of the symbols of Judaism. …. The image of a bitten apple, the logo of the famous Apple company, embodies the apple that encouraged Isaac Newton to discover gravity on the one hand, and the mythical image of the fruit of sin that led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from paradise (Gurbanov, 2013).
The symbolic world covers various areas of human culture, formed from myth, art, religion, language, history and science. As man's knowledge and experience increase, his connections with the world of symbols increase and become stronger. According to Fromm (1992), the basis of symbolic language is a person's perception of individual experiences, feelings and thoughts as if they were events that take place outside of him. Symbolic language has a different logic than ordinary everyday language, and what is important in the logic of this language is not time and space, but density, meaning and connection. Understanding the language of myths, tales and dreams is possible by knowing the subtleties of symbolic language. "Symbolic language is the only universal language created by mankind and is the same for all cultures that exist in the course of history". (Fromm, 1992, p. 18)
The attitude of the artistic symbol, which carries out the transformation from nature to literature, to the starting point - the fact of nature - is not always unambiguous, but it always bears traces of that fact of nature. It is the way of thinking of the age in which the symbol that regulates the relationship between the fact of nature and its transformation, the artistic symbol, emerges. Over time, characters acquire the habit of embracing each other, building different relationships with each other, and even denying each other, but despite all their characteristics, symbols can come together to form a world-class encyclopedic base. This database is open to all world literature, both writers and readers.
In "Mystical Experiments and Symbols in Primary Societies" Levy-Bruhl (2016), argued that at the root of the abstraction ability of modern man stands mystical experience. Life experience from the positivist consciousness of the modern world is compared with the experience of life of primitive man based on the mystical consciousness. This experience, which is somewhat ironic by modern man, in fact draws attention to its dominant role in the cultural development of man. According to the scientist, the symbolic concept of primitive man is different from the symbolic concept of modern man, in primitive societies objects, beings and so on., both symbols and words initially performed the function together, i.e. the object = symbol = word formula is valid for them. As a result of the changes that have taken place over time, things and beings have disappeared, and words continued to exist. As the number of these words increased, so did the abstract power and performance of the human language.
According to Levy-Bruhl (2016), when primitive people look at the landscape around them, they do not see only hills, sands, trees, streams, sometimes stones and rocks with strange and fantastic shapes, and give meaning to every detail of the landscape. The geographical structure around primitive people is a mythological landscape, and the mystical experience of these people is to connect with beings belonging to an invisible world. According to primitive people, it is different from the world in which they live in the mythical world, it belongs to a period when there was no time, but this world is in the lands where they live, not on the other side of the horizon. Everything happens in the world they live in. Ancestors with totem features, mythological heroes lived here, their existence continues to be felt in local totem centers, sometimes in a tree rooted in the ground, on any rock (Levy-Bruhl, 2016). As Eliade (1960), pointed out, everything was considered the incarnation of the saint.
The mechanism of symbolization of nature occurs at the level of myth, archetype and triad of characters. Because symbols take root in the healthy nests of life, feeling, and the universe, and are incredibly enduring, a symbol can be transformed, but it will never die (Ricoeur, 2007).
Parvana Isayeva quotes that various archetypes (hero, God, child, shadow, etc.) are involved in the meanings of dreams, myths, rituals, as well as works of art, are a manifestation of collective consciousness and influence thinking and behavior. Drawing attention to the issue of identity between myth and archetype, she states that this similarity has a genetic-typological feature (Bekirgizi, 2016).
According to Jung (1968), it has no archetypal content, but only a scheme with image features. The original image enters the consciousness, using the experience of consciousness to fill that scheme: “The primitive ancestor, first of all, saw similarities between way of life and natural phenomena and the animal kingdom (in nutrition, birth, movement and behavior, as well as other outward signs), and tried to influence the unusual connection between those worlds and himself, thus the giant savage. It was able to maintain their optimism against the dangers posed by living things. Beliefs born of their struggle for survival and the experience they gained were "tested" and strengthened in their memories. The great ancestor looked at the world from the perspective or window of those images, and as they were systematized, totemim, animism, animatism, magic, and cult relations took shape. The fetishization of natural beings has challenged various rituals and ceremonies”. (Gafarli, 2015, p. 50)
As a result, the physical and material content of nature is exposed to the "corrosive effect of mythology" (Eliade, 1998, p. 69), symbolic understanding of nature through archetypes leads to myth. "The basis of the human psyche is a number of archaic images familiar to us from mythology and folklore. There is a rich literature on this. In accordance with the nature of myth, archetypal images as the image of a truly collective consciousness stand at the origin of mythology, religion and art”. (Bekirgizi, 2015, p. 10)
Losev's (1976), thesis that myth is the most important and necessary category of thought and life and that it is not accidental, fictional and fantastic, but the most concrete and real reality. Parvana Isayeva writes: “In ancient cultures, the only symbolically correct explanation of reality is myth ... The mythological perception of the world is not rational in nature, but emotional in nature. It gives rise to the idea that the ancient man was connected with the rest of the universe. In this sense, the myth, which is considered an achievement of human culture, is also an anthropological phenomenon, and has strongly influenced the philosophical and anthropological views of later times”. (Bekirgizi, 2015, p. 11)
It can be said that mythology is a deep and complex system of symbols. According to Rovner, et al. (2004), if the symbol is a mystical, mysterious island, the myth is an archipelago of islands.
Along with the origin of the world, animals, plants, and humans, myths also symbolically interpreted all events that took place up to the present state of mankind. It is the commonality of symbolic language that ensures the similarity of the myths formed in different parts of time and space. The role of symbols in the formation of myth is a serious theoretical problem. The way to determine the place and position of symbols in the formation of artistic thought, which is deeply connected with mythical thinking, is necessarily to understand what myth is. Myths created by symbolic language play a role in the interpretation and opening of the symbols used in literature today. The boundaries of the mystical experience of the primitive mind are not limited to nature, but take place in constant communication with the invisible world, which they perceive as real.
According to Levy-Bruhl (2016), the mystical consciousness of primitive man is coded on exposure and emotional behavior, close and intense contact with the invisible world does not cause him confusion and surprise, in fact, results in more emotional behavior. He explains the reason why a person who is confronted with supernatural forces is intuitively frightened by what these supernatural forces think of him, which frightens primitive man. Because the primitive mindset is unaware of the relationship between the "threat that is coming" and the "explanatory cause", it cannot distinguish it. Anxiety in the face of supernatural events is associated with many elements of intellectual and social origin, in addition to emotional ones. On the day he felt the difference between nature and the supernatural, a boundless plane opened before him. However, humanity has come this way for a very long time with great difficulty, one step forward, one step back (Levy-Bruhl, 2016). It is a paradox that the primitive mind, conditioned in a mystical way, is accustomed to animating only concrete objects. Intuitively refers to symbols to enliven and name the world of beings and events of the invisible world.
“For us moderns, a symbol is completely different from the invisible world to which we focus our attention, but the Greek word "symballen" ("root of the word symbol") means to unite: like the gin and tonic in a cocktail, it signifies the former inseparability. When you think of any object in the world, you would come across its celestial original. Entering the spiritual world in this way was the main principle of the mythical worldview”. (Armstrong, 2017, pp. 17-18)
In the mind of primitive man, the world of visible and invisible beings is united, inseparable, like two faces. "The visible animal is not a symbol of the invisible animal, but the animal itself" (Levy-Bruhl, 2016, p. 162). The content and form of a symbol can be very diverse at this point, and a number of factors contribute to this diversity: climate, environment, existing material, traditional beliefs and rules, and so on. What does not change is the process of mental activity itself, which creates symbolism. The symbolic act itself, which does not accept the logical explanation of the mythological worldview, is based on integration (Levy-Bruhl, 2016). Primitive man, in fact, seeks to subdue natural beings and events that he cannot conquer by performing mystical-magical acts on them. Keeping a symbol or symbolic influence meant influencing the natural phenomenon itself that the symbol indicated. When they want to enter into a dialogue with other beings in the invisible world, they turn to the symbol, symbolizing the extensions of those beings. The primitive works of art, rituals, dances, songs, formulas (molded words) of primitive man were the result of symbolic thinking.
Let us pay attention to two points that form a symbolic thinking in the mind of primitive man, as Levy-Bruhl (2016), interprets these different points using the formula of two different Latin languages. A similar description (similia) - similia similiubus, for example, symbolizes the fertility of a fertile woman, and the woman's contact with the garden and the field give rise to the belief that the soil will be fertile. Another method, pars pro toto - is based on the expression of the whole in the piece. In the act of integration based on mystical consciousness, the fabric replaces the whole. The footprint of an animal can symbolize the animal itself. Symbolic simulation is the reality of primitive people, there is no false, artificial activity; it comes from the experience of mystical consciousness.
“On the whole, knowledge, the collective culture, the shared reality and moreover the individuals and groups behave in a symbolical way: they express and communicate figuratively or, what is the same, they use figurations to become intelligible. And this reality and its mediated forms of expression are fundamentally imaginative, as they are configured and created through symbolic forms and mythical narratives that constitute them”. (Sola Morales, 2013, p. 41)
Observing the fact that a black bull with no blemishes on it represents the mudzimu, or spirits of ancestors, according to the South African Ba-Vendas, Levy-Bruhl emphasizes that in ethnological research on these tribes, this black bull is sometimes symbolized by a stone. We know that in the ancient world, stone was a widespread hierophany (manifestation of holiness). When the first people looked at the stone, they did not see a motionless or expressionless object. The stone was the embodiment of the absolute phase of power, eternity, rigidity, and existence. Thus, the stones represent the animals that symbolize the ancestors, this time a double symbolic act takes place. For example, first the skull symbolizes the ancestor, then the fruit of the coconut can replace the skull and symbolize the ancestor.
Unlike Levy-Bruhl, B. Malinowski (1990), distinguishes magical, religious and scientific origins in the primitive mind. According to the scientist, no matter how primitive, there is no nation without religion and magic, and there is no primitive nation without scientific capacity, despite the frequent denial of these abilities (Malinowski, 1990). Man tends to design the world around him as a copy of himself. Animals have souls because plants and objects move and are good or bad for humans. Science is born of experience, and magic is born of tradition. Science is the perception of the power of nature, and magic and mystical consciousness are the design of this power. Rational, irrational, and emotional behaviors participated in the formation of totemist and animist views in the early experience of human consciousness.
In fact, according to biocultural concepts, “Biocultural theorists argue that basic human motives are channeled into cultural norms that are articulated in imaginative form through myths, legends, rituals, images, songs, and stories. Biocultural theory offers an opportunity to develop literary research in company with our developing scientific understanding of human motives, emotions, identity, social interactions, and forms of cognition”. (Carroll, 2015, p. 21)
The cosmos as a whole and nature as a part of it are a book of symbols and an iconic picture that must be understood in man's material and spiritual journey (Nasr, 1985). According to Nasr (1985), the symbols used to understand and interpret nature are related to the form of Revelation, which invades and leads in that culture and emphasizes and sanctifies some of the symbols hidden in the nature of beings. Because the symbols that reflect the ontological direction of nature and the elements of nature are beyond the subjectivity of the observer, there is a connection between the symbols used by each culture in the concept of nature and Revelation. For example, the word nature itself is not used in the Qur'an, but there is the word "tab", which has been interpreted by commentators as a veil separating man from God.
Another approach emphasizes the importance of subjectivity in the relationship between nature and its perception: “What is the ‘natural ’element of this world? This is a question with many edges. Although we communicate our thoughts about nature using language, symbols and codes are considered to be artificial, belonging to the realm of minds and knowledge, not natural elements. For this reason, the influences of the so-called 'natural' sciences upon the 'human' ones are accepted as beneficial to advance towards a better explanation (as symbols or knowledge can have naturalistic explanations), whereas the reverse tend to be seen as problematic (as nature appears to be interpreted in an anthropocentric way). In fact, a usual epistemological demand is that symbolic or mental aspects are slowly ‘reduced’ with scientific progress until they are grounded on natural relations or interactions. However, it is not evident that this is possible, neither that a frontier or boundary between the categories of nature and symbols can be drawn, for they seem to be tightly intertwined together”. (Etxeberria & Moreno, 2001, p. 149)
The sky was the subject of the most ancient myths dating back to the Paleolithic period. Most likely, it was heaven that first brought the idea of holiness to people's minds (Armstrong, 2017). The heavens and the celestial bodies, with their majesty and inaccessibility, symbolized infinity and absoluteness. In the cosmic order, man has been constantly thinking about the heavens and the earth, between heaven and earth, which are on the brink of his real life, and which he does not belong to, and have developed various perceptions. Man's interest in the heavens and the celestial bodies, as well as in the underworld, was based on the need to learn, to name, and to give meaning. Primitive man was in fact experiencing his first religious experience when he looked at the infinite and very distant sky. The sky rose above its head with its inaccessibility, breadth, depth and grandeur. "Heaven was transcendence and otherness itself" (Armstrong, 2017, p. 18), it had a sacred meaning.
According to the religious historian Rudolf Otto (Meland, 2021) there are three components to the foundation on which all religions are built: Mysterium - different from our daily experiences another holy one makes us silent; tremendum - creates fear because it is felt as a great power; fascinans - expresses compassion and kindness in spite of fear. It has freed man, emotionally and imaginatively, from the limitations of his beliefs, which began in a mystical way with a fundamental understanding of the world. Thanks to this experience of the mythological age, the sky remained a symbol of holiness after the Paleolithic period. People in different parts of the world began to humanize the sky and tell myths about the God of Heaven, the Almighty God, who created the heavens and the earth from nothing. According to Armstrong (2017), this primitive monotheism began to emerge in the Paleolithic period. "Height" continued to be a mythical symbol of the saint as a relic of the spiritualism of the Paleolithic period.
One of the most interesting questions in mythological research is why primitive generations chose a certain number of species, especially animals and plants, as totems. According to Malinowski (1990), food is the first link between primitive man and destiny. For primitive man, nature is a living storehouse that satisfies the hungry, and the path from wild nature to the stomach and soul of primitive man is very short. The need for food and its provision has led to economic activities such as gathering, hunting and fishing. The animal world is distinguished by its general resemblance to man, making sounds, moving, and having a human body and face. At the same time, they have abilities beyond man: birds fly, fish swim, reptiles change their skins, and they can disappear underground. Primitive man was both amazed and frightened by these features of the animal, and as a result, man did choices that meet his interests, admiration, and fear from the first animal world and the second plant world. Malinowski sees totemism as the natural result of existence, the spontaneous attitude of primitive man towards objects of nature, the transformation of primitive man into a social form in which this interest is expressed in a ritual way with a limited interest in animals and plants.
Schimmel (1999), notes that the taboo of some animals in the mythological worldview is related to totemism. An example of this is nagualism in the mythological worldview of red-skinned people - the declaration of any animal in a dream by a person who sees that dream as a protector. According to exogamy, which is a law of marriage in our totem, no one from a tribe (for example, the rabbit tribe) who is sacred to any animal totem can marry a woman from the same tribe.
Wolfram Eberhard (2020), wrote: “In living things, animals are more important than plants. But domestic animals are not used as dense symbols as wild animals. We encounter the same thing when the dreams of the Chinese are examined; in their dreams, the Chinese rarely see calves, pigs and chickens. For plants, the situation is quite the opposite: all trees or shrubs have a special significance in everyday life: they are sometimes used as fruit, as a perfume or as a building material”. (p. 21)
In practice, it is possible to see that in Chinese mythology, the four sacred creatures - the dragon, the tiger, the phoenix and the tortoise - have a special place. The dragon was a symbol of spring and the East, the tiger a symbol of autumn and the West, the phoenix the symbol of summer and the South, the tortoise the symbol of winter and the North. In the mythical thinking of the Chinese, the Dragon, as the ruler of the water element, gave people moisture. The dragon was third after Heaven and Earth. There were four types of dragons in China: The Celestial Dragon, which protects the abode of the gods, the Divine Dragon, which sends rain and wind, the Earth Dragon, which determines the direction and depth of water, and the Dragon, which protects treasures.
The principle of the selector can also be observed in the formation of animistic ideas.
Edward Burnett Tylor (1832-1917) and his followers considered animism to be the beginning of all religions. There are different ideas about spirits, the soul leaves the body at death, goes to other places (according to ancient beliefs, trees, animals, birds, mice, snakes and butterflies are the most famous of them) to continue living (Schimmel, 1999). According to these beliefs, the abode of spirits is sometimes in the air and wind, in rocks or vegetation, or underground, on the other side of the seas and oceans. Jansu Tanpolat also wrote about the symbol of the snake while talking about "the main animal myths in Eastern and Western cultures":
“Snake is a special animal that symbolizes different things with a very different direction. The change of skin has made it a symbol of infinite youth and eternal life, as well as renewal and rebirth. Falling under the ground and prolonged hibernation, as well as deadly poison, caused it to be associated with the underworld and beyond. It is a symbol of assassination with its poisonous structure and silence. It has also become a symbol of pharmacy”. (Kilich, 2017, p. 142)
Kilich (2017), approach to the idea that the snake is a symbol of youth is as follows: “Throughout history, along with the plants and water that the earth offers, some animals have been seen by human beings as symbols of immortality or rejuvenation. Perhaps the most common of these is the snake, which is a reptile”. (p. 142)
According to Malinowski (1990), the core of animism is connected with the deepest and most exciting side of human nature, the desire to live. According to anthropology, disgust with the body and fear of the soul are feelings of aggression. Mummification and burning are in fact a contradiction between the desire to protect and destroy the body (Malinowski, 1990). This behavior is the core of religion. Man's instinct for life, his belief in the continuity of life, chooses the better of two choices - the hope of survival and the fear of extinction. Because religion saves man from surrendering to death and decay.
Conclusions
Art has taken its starting point from the imitation of nature, and this path, which began with an attempt to turn the early observations of primitive people into art on the walls of ancient caves, has today reached a more complex level based on hundreds of directions, far removed from simple and precise imitation; abstract, based on intuition, emotion and human experience. Each of the symbols of nature that we come across in literary texts today has its own story, and this story has a content-structure derived from the myth-archetype-symbol triangle. There is a mechanism of creation, self-affirmation and survival of the symbol, which passes from the fact of nature to the phenomenon of literature. Any symbol of nature has an absolute connection with the archaic beginning, the solution of which ensures the revelation of the hidden content of the symbol.
