Introduction

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 at least 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.