Books in the Theorists of Myth series

This is an interesting study with a great deal of information on Eliade's main themes and a detailed account of his understanding of myth.

The only book that described the origins and rise of myth-and-ritual literary criticism.

In this comprehensive introduction, to French critic Rene Girard, Richard Golsan focuses on Girard's theory of myth and its connections to his broader exploration of the origins of suffering and violence in Western culture.

Frye differed from other theorists of myth in tracing the major literary genres-romance,comedy, satire, not just tragedy-to myth and ritual. This is the most thorough presentation of his thinking.

Myth theorists characterise myths as stories that possess the status of sacred truth within one or more social groups. Flood discusses how political myth is an ideologically marked narrative, widely accepted as valid in its essentials.

'Meletinsky grasps the essentials of theories he discusses and makes clear distinctions between them Highly recommended for upper division undergraduates, graduate students and teachers/scholars of myth.' - Choice

The book surveys and evaluates the methods that Freud and the various psychoanalytic schools have employed in their studies of myths. In addition to providing a historical survey, the author argues that modern views of myth as something to be deplored because it is inconsistent with history and science depends on a misunderstanding of the nature of myth. Myth is not a product of unconscious irrationality but is instead a sustained use of metaphor. It expresses ideas in concrete imagery of unconscious inspiration, but the ideas can be rational and profound, as is also the case with poetry and scientific models. As such, there is no validity in condescending to myth-telling cultures, as though their use of myth made them less rational or realistic than Western culture.

This text investigates the significance of myth in the context of the survival of civilization and cultures. Such an examination is conducted by way of the two leading philosophers on myth, Cassirer and Langer.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is an interesting study with a great deal of information on Eliade's main themes and a detailed account of his understanding of myth.

This book surveys the history of psychoanalytic treatments of myths variously as symptoms of psychopathology, as cultural defense mechanisms, and as metaphoric expressions of ideas that may include therapeutic insights.

Kenneth Burke--rhetorician, philosopher, linguist, sociologist, literary and music critic, crank--was one of the foremost theorists of literary form. He did not fit tidily into any philosophical school, nor was he reducible to any simple set of principles or ideas. He published widely, and is probably best known for two of his classic works, A Rhetoric of Motive and Philosophy of Literary Form. His observations on myth, however, were never systematic, and much of his writing on literary theory and other topics cannot be fully understood without fleshing out his thoughts on myth and mythmaking.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1996. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.