Myth And Literature

First published in 1975, Myth and Literature considers three points at which the concept of myth has entered modern literary imagination: the use of myth – or atleast their understanding of myth -- as a creative opening by modern writers, its exploration by critics as an interpretive device, and the analogy between certain ‘sense-making’ functions of ‘myth’, ‘fiction’ and literature itself. All three of these roles show the gradual movement from a point of precise demand to a diffuse and variable concept which is more pervasive because less distinct. The paradox of myth is shown to lie in its simultaneity of its corruption with the growth of its power over the modern literary mind. This book will be of interest to students of literature and history.

Essays by Thomas Mann, Philips Rieff, Mircea Eliade, and a dozen other contributors on myths in life and literature, many originally published in "Daedalus" by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection of thirty-four major essays devoted to the theories, methods, and problems of major criticism offers a convenient and substantial introduction to one of the most distinctive trends in contemporary literary study. -- From publisher's description.

There was no simple agreement on the subject of "myth" in classical antiquity, and there remains none today. In Approaches to Greek Myth, Lowell Edmunds brings together practitioners of eight of the most important contemporary approaches to the subject. Whether exploring myth from a historical, comparative, or theoretical perspective, each lucidly describes a particular approach, applies it to one or more myths, and reflects on what the approach yields that others do not. Contributors are H. S. Versnel on the intersections of myth and ritual; Carlo Brillante, on the history of Greek myth and history in Greek myth; Robert Mondi, on the near Eastern contexts, and Joseph Falaky Nagy, on the Indo-European structure in Greek myth; William F. Hansen on myth and folklore; Claude Calame, on the Greimasian approach; Richard Caldwell, on psychoanalytic interpretations; and Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, on the iconography of vase paintings of Theseus and Medea—and on a methodology for "reading" such visual sources. In his introduction, Edmunds confronts Marcel Detienne's recent deconstruction of the notion of Greek mythology and reconstructs a meaning for myth among the ancient Greeks.

Classical Mythology in English Literature brings together a range of English versions of three classical myths. It allows students to explore the ways in which they have been reinterpreted and reinvented by writers throughout history. Beginning with a concise introduction to the principle Greco-Roman gods and heroes, the anthology then focuses on three stories: * Orpheus, the great musician and his quest to free his wife Eurydice from death * Venus and Adonis, the love goddess and the beautiful youth she loved * Pygmalion, the master sculptor who fell in love with his creation. Each section begins with the classical sources and ends with contemporary versions, showing how each myth has been used/abused or appropriated since its origins

This book explores the appropriation and transformation of classical mythology by French culture from the mid-twelfth century to about 1430. Each of the five chapters focuses on a specific moment in this process and asks: What were the purposes of transforming classical myth? Which techniques did poets use to integrate classical subject matter into their own texts? Was a special interpretive tradition created for vernacular texts? In Chapter 1, the author shows how Latin epic texts were reoriented for political purposes in the twelfth-century Anglo-Norman realm, gaining new depth by the addition of Ovidian elements that evoked threats of a disorder different from the struggles of classical epic. Chapter 2 analyzes the complex use of myth in the thirteenth-century Roman de la Rose, which offers new conjunctions and interpretations of myths related to language, artistic expression, and sexuality. Chapter 3 focuses on the interpretive techniques and vocabulary of the fourteenth-century Ovide moralisé, such as "allegory," "fable," and istoire, arguing that the Christianization of the Metamorphoses created a "new Ovid" in the form of a fourteenth-century friar. Chapter 4 reveals that, although Guillaume de Machaut questioned the usefulness of mythic fables, he turned to them to invoke artistic consolation and ward off threats to his poetic voice. It also describes how Jean Froissart produced new myths by combining existing fables with newly invented elements in an attempt to dramatize the poetic creativity of his age. Finally, Chapter 5 demonstrates how Christine de Pizan offered the full range of medieval possibilities for myth: playing with the mythographic tradition, inscribing herself into Ovidian myths, offering historical explanations, rewriting myths from a pro-woman stance, and finally creating mythic universes of her own.