Mythopoeia

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Mythopoeia (Ancient Greek : μυθοποιία , romanized: muthopoiía, lit.  'myth-making'), or mythopoesis, is a subgenre of speculative fiction, and a theme in modern literature and film, where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose, poetry, or other literary forms. The concept was widely popularised by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s, although it long predated him. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction. Mythopoeia is also the act of creating a mythology. [1]

Contents

Genre

Joseph Campbell wrote about the role of created mythologies in the modern world. Joseph Campbell (cropped).png
Joseph Campbell wrote about the role of created mythologies in the modern world.

The term mythopoeia comes from Hellenistic Greek muthopoiía (μυθοποιία), meaning 'myth-making'; an alternative is mythopoesis (μυθοποίησις) of similar meaning. [3] The definition of mythopoeia as "a creating of myth" is first recorded from 1846. [1] [4] In early use, it meant the making of myths in ancient times. [5]

While many literary works carry mythic themes, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoesis. Mythopoeic authors include William Blake, [6] H. P. Lovecraft, [7] Lord Dunsany, [8] J. R. R. Tolkien, [9] C. S. Lewis, [10] Mervyn Peake, [11] and Robert E. Howard. [12] Tolkien used the word as the title of one of his poems, written in 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf . [13]

Works of mythopoeia are often categorized as fantasy or science fiction but fill a niche for mythology in the modern world, according to Joseph Campbell, a famous student of world mythology. Campbell spoke of a Nietzschean world which has today outlived much of the mythology of the past. He claimed that new myths must be created, but he believed that present culture is changing too rapidly for society to be completely described by any such mythological framework until a later age. [2]

The philosopher Phillip Stambovsky argues that mythopoeia provides relief from the existential dread that comes with a rational world, and that it can serve as a way to link different cultures and societies. [14] [ page needed ]

Mythopoeia is sometimes called artificial mythology, which emphasizes that it did not evolve naturally and is an artifice comparable with artificial language, and therefore should not be taken seriously as mythology. For example, the noted folklorist Alan Dundes argued that "any novel cannot meet the cultural criteria of myth. A work of art, or artifice, cannot be said to be the narrative of a culture's sacred tradition...[it is] at most, artificial myth." [9]

In literature

Antecedents

William Blake's mythology is both written and illustrated. Here, Los is tormented at his smithy by the Spectre in an illustration to Jerusalem. Spectre over Los from William Blake's Jeruesalem.jpg
William Blake's mythology is both written and illustrated. Here, Los is tormented at his smithy by the Spectre in an illustration to Jerusalem.

William Blake set out his mythology in his "prophetic works" such as Vala, or The Four Zoas . These name several original gods, such as Urizen, Orc, Los, Albion, Rintrah, Ahania and Enitharmon. [17] Later in the 19th century, stories by George MacDonald and H. Rider Haggard created fictional worlds; C. S. Lewis praised both for their "mythopoeic" gifts. [18]

Lord Dunsany's 1905 book of short stories, The Gods of Pegana , is linked by Dunsany's invented pantheon of deities who dwell in Pegāna. It was followed by Time and the Gods , by some stories in The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories , and by Tales of Three Hemispheres . In 1919, Dunsany told an American interviewer, "In The Gods of Pegana I tried to account for the ocean and the moon. I don't know whether anyone else has ever tried that before." [19] Dunsany's work influenced J. R. R. Tolkien's later writings. [20]

T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) was a deliberate attempt to model a 20th-century mythology patterned after the birth-rebirth motif described by the anthropologist and folklorist James George Frazer. [21]

J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien's bust by Faith Falcounbridge in Exeter College, Oxford Oxford Tolkien.JPG
J. R. R. Tolkien's bust by Faith Falcounbridge in Exeter College, Oxford

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote a poem titled Mythopoeia following a discussion on the night of 19 September 1931 at Magdalen College, Oxford with C. S. Lewis and Hugo Dyson, in which he intended to explain and defend creative myth-making. [9] The poem describes the creative human author as "the little maker" wielding his "own small golden sceptre" and ruling his "subcreation" (understood as a creation of Man within God's primary creation). [22]

Tolkien's wider legendarium includes not only origin myths, creation myths, and an epic poetry cycle, but also fictive linguistics, geology and geography. He more succinctly explores the function of such myth-making, "subcreation" and "Faery" in the short story Leaf by Niggle (1945), the novella Smith of Wootton Major (1967), and the essays Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics (1936) and On Fairy-Stories (1939). Written in 1939 for presentation by Tolkien at the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews and published in print in 1947, On Fairy-Stories explains "Faery" as both a fictitious realm and an archetypal plane in the psyche or soul from whence Man derives his "subcreative" capacity. Tolkien emphasizes the importance of language in the act of channeling "subcreation", speaking of the human linguistic faculty in general as well as the specifics of the language used in a given tradition, particularly in the form of story and song: [23]

Mythology is not a disease at all, though it may like all human things become diseased. You might as well say that thinking is a disease of the mind. It would be more near the truth to say that languages, especially modern European languages, are a disease of mythology. But Language cannot, all the same, be dismissed. The incarnate mind, the tongue, and the tale are in our world coeval. The human mind, endowed with the powers of generalization and abstraction, sees not only green-grass, discriminating it from other things (and finding it fair to look upon), but sees that it is green as well as being grass. But how powerful, how stimulating to the very faculty that produced it, was the invention of the adjective: no spell or incantation in Faerie is more potent. And that is not surprising: such incantations might indeed be said to be only another view of adjectives, a part of speech in a mythical grammar. The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water. If it could do the one, it could do the other; it inevitably did both. When we can take green from grass, blue from heaven, and red from blood, we have already an enchanter's power—upon one plane; and the desire to wield that power in the world external to our minds awakes. It does not follow that we shall use that power well upon any plane. We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such "fantasy," as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator. [24]

Tolkien was unable to emulate Elias Lonnrot, who travelled Finland recording oral folklore, and then reconstructed the country's mythology. 1912 sketch for a mural, Lonnrot and the Rune Singers, by Akseli Gallen-Kallela Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Lonnrot and the Oral Poets (mural sketch).jpg
Tolkien was unable to emulate Elias Lönnrot, who travelled Finland recording oral folklore, and then reconstructed the country's mythology. 1912 sketch for a mural, Lönnrot and the Rune Singers, by Akseli Gallen-Kallela

Tolkien scholars have likened his views on the creation of myth to the Christian concept of Logos or "The Word", which is said to act as both "the [...] language of nature" spoken into being by God, and "a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM". [26] [27]

Verlyn Flieger wrote that Elias Lönnrot intentionally created the Kalevala as a mythology for Finland, giving it "a world of magic and mystery, a heroic age of story that may never have existed in precisely the form he gave it, but nevertheless fired Finland with a sense of its own independent worth." [28] In her view, Tolkien, who had read the Kalevala, "envisioned himself" doing exactly the same thing, except that the mythology would be entirely fictive. Lönnrot had travelled the backwoods of Finland for 20 years, collecting stories and songs "from unlettered peasants". [28] Tolkien meant to invent both the collectors and the storytellers, in his case Elves: "he would be at once the singer and the compiler, the performer and the audience." [28]

C. S. Lewis

At the time that Tolkien debated the usefulness of myth and mythopoeia with C. S. Lewis in 1931, Lewis was a theist [29] and liked but was skeptical of mythology, taking the position that myths were "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'". [9] [30] However Lewis later began to speak of Christianity as the one "true myth". Lewis wrote, "The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened." [31] Subsequently, his Chronicles of Narnia is regarded as mythopoeia, with storylines referencing that Christian mythology, namely the narrative of a great king who is sacrificed to save his people and is resurrected. Lewis's mythopoeic intent is often confused with allegory, where the characters and world of Narnia would stand in direct equivalence with concepts and events from Christian theology and history, but Lewis repeatedly emphasized that an allegorical reading misses the point (the mythopoeia) of the Narnia stories. [10] He shares this skepticism toward allegory with Tolkien, who disliked "conscious and intentional" allegory as it stood in opposition the broad and "inevitable" allegory of themes like "Fall" and "Mortality". [32]

Superheroes of comic books

In The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints, Thomas Roberts observes that: [33]

To the student of myth, the mythos of the comics superheroes is of unique interest."
"Why do human beings want myths and how do they make them? Some of the answers to those questions can be found only sixty years back. Where did Superman and the other superheroes come from? In his Encyclopedia of the Superheroes, Jeff Rovin correctly observes, "In the earliest days, we called them 'gods'.

The 1938-debuting Superman, for example, sent from the "heavens" by his father to save humanity, is a messiah-type of character in the Biblical tradition. [34] Furthermore, along with the rest of DC Comic's Justice League of America, Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower in the skies; just as the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus. [35]

In film

Frank McConnell, author of Storytelling and Mythmaking and professor of English at the University of California, called film another "mythmaking" art, stating: "Film and literature matter as much as they do because they are versions of mythmaking." [36] In his view, film is a perfect vehicle for mythmaking: "FILM...strives toward the fulfillment of its own projected reality in an ideally associative, personal world." [37] In a broad analysis, McConnell associates the American western movies and romance movies with the Arthurian mythology, [38] adventure and action movies with the "epic world" mythologies of founding societies, [39] and many romance movies where the hero is allegorically playing the role of a knight, with "quest" mythologies like Sir Gawain and the Quest for the Holy Grail . [40]

Star Wars

George Lucas George Lucas 1986 (cropped).jpg
George Lucas

Filmmaker George Lucas speaks of the cinematic storyline of Star Wars as an example of modern myth-making. In 1999 he told Bill Moyers, "With Star Wars I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs." [41] McConnell writes that "it has passed, quicker than anyone could have imagined, from the status of film to that of legitimate and deeply embedded popular mythology." [42] John Lyden, the Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Dana College, argues that Star Wars does indeed reproduce religious and mythical themes; specifically, he argues that the work is apocalyptic in concept and scope. [43] Steven D. Greydanus of The Decent Film Guide agrees, calling Star Wars a "work of epic mythopoeia." [44] In fact, Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia: [44]

"The Force, the Jedi knights, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Princess Leia, Yoda, lightsabers, and the Death Star hold a place in the collective imagination of countless Americans that can only be described as mythic. In my review of A New Hope I called Star Wars 'the quintessential American mythology', an American take on King Arthur, Tolkien, and the samurai/wuxia epics of the East ..."

— Steven D. Greydanus

Roger Ebert has observed of Star Wars that "It is not by accident that George Lucas worked with Joseph Campbell, an expert on the world's basic myths, in fashioning a screenplay that owes much to man's oldest stories." [45] The "mythical" aspects of the Star Wars franchise have been challenged by other film critics. Regarding claims by Lucas himself, Steven Hart observes that Lucas didn't mention Joseph Campbell at the time of the original Star Wars; evidently they met only in the 1980s. Their mutual admiration "did wonders for [Campbell's] visibility" and obscured the tracks of Lucas in the "despised genre" science fiction; "the epics make for an infinitely classier set of influences." [46]

In music

In classical music, Richard Wagner's operas were a deliberate attempt to create a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk ('total work of art'), transforming the legends of the Teutonic past nearly out of recognition into a new monument to the Romantic project.

While ostensibly known for improvised jamming, the rock group Phish first cemented as a group while producing leading member Trey Anastasio's senior project in college, called The Man Who Stepped into Yesterday. The song cycle features narration of major events in a mythical land called Gamehendge, containing types of imaginary creatures and primarily populated by a race called the "Lizards". It is essentially a postmodern pastiche, drawing from Anastasio's interest in musicals or rock operas as much as from reading philosophy and fiction. [47] The creation of the myth is considered by many fans the thesis statement of the group, musically and philosophically, as Gamehendge's book of lost secrets (called the "Helping Friendly Book") is summarized as an encouragement to improvisation in any part of life: "the trick was to surrender to the flow." [48]

The black metal band Immortal's lyricist Harald Nævdal has created a mythological realm called Blashyrkh filled with demons, battles, winter landscapes, woods, and darkness, described by the band as a northern "Frostdemon" realm. [49]

Organizations

The Mythopoeic Society exists to promote mythopoeic literature, with conferences, books, periodicals, and the Mythopoeic Awards. [50]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Campbell</span> American mythologist, writer, and lecturer (1904–1987)

Joseph John Campbell was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human condition. Campbell's best-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lord Dunsany</span> Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist (1878–1957)

Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron Dunsany, commonly known as Lord Dunsany, was an Anglo-Irish writer and dramatist. He published more than 90 books during his lifetime, and his output consisted of hundreds of short stories, plays, novels, and essays; further works were published posthumously. Having gained a name in the 1910s as a writer in the English-speaking world, he is best known today for the 1924 fantasy novel The King of Elfland's Daughter, and his first book, The Gods of Pegāna, which depicts a fictional pantheon. Many critics feel his early work laid grounds for the fantasy genre.

"On Fairy-Stories" is a 1947 essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the fairy story as a literary form. It was written as a lecture entitled "Fairy Stories" for the Andrew Lang lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, on 8 March 1939.

Religion and mythology differ in scope but have overlapping aspects. Both are systems of concepts that are of high importance to a certain community, making statements concerning the supernatural or sacred. Generally, mythology is considered one component or aspect of religion. Religion is the broader term: besides mythological aspects, it includes aspects of ritual, morality, theology, and mystical experience. A given mythology is almost always associated with a certain religion such as Greek mythology with Ancient Greek religion. Disconnected from its religious system, a myth may lose its immediate relevance to the community and evolve—away from sacred importance—into a legend or folktale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Classical mythology</span> Study of myths of the Greeks and Romans

Classical mythology, also known as Greco-Roman mythology or Greek and Roman mythology, is the collective body and study of myths from the ancient Greeks and ancient Romans. Mythology, along with philosophy and political thought, is one of the major survivals of classical antiquity throughout later, including modern, Western culture. The Greek word mythos refers to the spoken word or speech, but it also denotes a tale, story or narrative.

<i>J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator</i> Book by Wayne Hammond and Christina Scull

J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator is a collection of paintings and drawings by J. R. R. Tolkien for his stories, published posthumously in 1995. The book was edited by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull. It won the 1996 Mythopoeic Scholarship Award for Inklings Studies. The nature and importance of Tolkien's artwork is discussed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mythopoeic Awards</span> Literary award

The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given annually for outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas. Established by the Mythopoeic Society in 1971, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award is given for "fiction in the spirit of the Inklings", and the Scholarship Award for non-fiction work. The award is a statuette of a seated lion, with a plaque on the base. It has drawn resemblance to, and is often called, the "Aslan".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Historical fantasy</span> Genre of fiction

Historical fantasy is a category of fantasy and genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements into a more "realistic" narrative. There is much crossover with other subgenres of fantasy; those classed as Arthurian, Celtic, or Dark Ages could just as easily be placed in historical fantasy. Stories fitting this classification generally take place prior to the 20th century.

Mythopoeic may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fantasy literature</span> Literature set in an imaginary universe

Fantasy literature is literature set in an imaginary universe, often but not always without any locations, events, or people from the real world. Magic, the supernatural and magical creatures are common in many of these imaginary worlds. Fantasy literature may be directed at both children and adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mythopoeic Society</span> Nonprofit organization

The Mythopoeic Society (MythSoc) is a non-profit organization devoted to the study of mythopoeic literature, particularly the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis. These men were all members of The Inklings, an informal group of writers who met weekly in Lewis' rooms at Magdalen College, Oxford, from the early 1930s until late 1949.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul H. Kocher</span> American scholar of literature

Paul Harold Kocher was an American scholar, writer, and professor of English. He wrote extensively on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien as well as on Elizabethan English drama, philosophy, religion, and medicine. His numerous publications include studies of Christopher Marlowe and Francis Bacon. He also authored books on the Franciscan missions of 18th- and 19th-century California.

<i>Beyond the Fields We Know</i> Collection of short fiction by Lord Dunsany

Beyond the Fields We Know is a collection of fantasy short stories by Irish writer Lord Dunsany, and edited by Lin Carter. The title is derived from a description of the location of the border of Elfland used over one hundred times in Lord Dunsany's best-known novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter. It was first published in paperback by Ballantine Books as the forty-seventh volume of its Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in May 1972. It was the series' fourth Dunsany volume, and the second collection of his shorter fantasies assembled by Carter.

<i>In the Land of Time, and Other Fantasy Tales</i> Collection of short stories by Lord Dunsany

In the Land of Time and Other Fantasy Tales is a posthumous collection of short stories by the writer Lord Dunsany in the Penguin Classics series. It was published in 2004. Edited and with an introduction by S. T. Joshi, it assembles material from across Dunsany's long career. The cover illustration is a colourised version of a classic illustration for an early Dunsany story by his preferred artist, Sidney Sime.

J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. He was inspired primarily by his profession, philology; his work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings.

<i>The Road to Middle-Earth</i> Book of literary criticism of Tolkien

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J. R. R. Tolkien Created a New Mythology is a scholarly study of the Middle-earth works of J. R. R. Tolkien written by Tom Shippey and first published in 1982. The book discusses Tolkien's philology, and then examines in turn the origins of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, and his minor works. An appendix discusses Tolkien's many sources. Two further editions extended and updated the work, including a discussion of Peter Jackson's film version of The Lord of the Rings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Myth</span> Type of traditional narrative

Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the veracity of a myth is not a defining criterion.

Mythology is the term often used by fans of a particular book, television, or film series to describe a fiction franchise's overarching plot and often mysterious backstory. Daniel Peretti argues that mythology "is often used emically to refer to back story". The term was pioneered by the American science fiction series The X-Files, which first aired in 1993. With this being said, many other forms of media have some sort of mythology, and the term is often applied in regards to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, and the Batman and Superman comics, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tolkien's impact on fantasy</span> A fantasy authors effect on literary genre

Although fantasy had long existed in various forms around the world before his time, J. R. R. Tolkien has been called the "father of fantasy", and The Lord of the Rings its centre. That novel, published in 1954–5, enormously influenced fantasy writing, establishing in particular the form of high or epic fantasy, set in a secondary or fantasy world in an act of mythopoeia. The book was distinctive at the time for its considerable length, its "epic" feel with a cast of heroic characters, its wide geography, and its battles. It involved an extensive history behind the action, an impression of depth, multiple sentient races and monsters, and powerful talismans. The story is a quest, with multiple subplots. The novel's success demonstrated that the genre was commercially distinct and viable.

References

  1. 1 2 "mythopoeia". Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary . Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  2. 1 2 Campbell, Joseph (1988). "Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth". Bill Moyers.
  3. ↑ New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
  4. ↑ "mythopoeia" . Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  5. ↑ For example, "The first two, the most remote stages, are purely linguistic germs of mythology: the third is in the domain of mythopoeia, or myth-building." Bunsen, C. C. J. (1860). Egypt's Place in Universal History: an Historical Investigation in Five Books, Volume IV. Charles H. Cottrell (trans.). Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts. p. 450.
  6. ↑ "mythopoeia". Oxford Reference. Retrieved 2 March 2022. individually by a writer who elaborates a personal system of spiritual principles as in the writings of William Blake
  7. ↑ Norman, Joseph (2013). "'Sounds Which Filled Me with an Indefinable Dread': The Cthulhu Mythopoeia of H. P. Lovecraft in 'Extreme' Metal". In Simmons, David (ed.). New Critical Essays on H. P. Lovecraft. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 193–208. doi:10.1057/9781137320964_11. ISBN   978-1-137-32096-4. OCLC   5576363673. S2CID   192763998.
  8. ↑ "The Gods of Dunsany", The New York Times , 26 January 1919 (Arts & Leisure)
  9. 1 2 3 4 Dundes, quoted by Adcox, 2003.
  10. 1 2 Abate, Michelle Ann; Weldy, Lance (2012). C.S. Lewis. London: Palgrave. p. 131. ISBN   978-1137284976.
  11. ↑ Sisson, Richard (2000). "Irmin Schmidt's Fantasy Opera 'Gormenghast' on CD". Peake Studies. 7 (1): 14–16. JSTOR   24776036.
  12. ↑ "The Demarcation of Sword and Sorcery – Black Gate" . Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  13. ↑ "Mythopoeia by J.R.R. Tolkien". ccil.org. Archived from the original on 9 January 2006.
  14. ↑ Stambovsky, Phillip (2004). Myth and the Limits of Reason. University Press of America. ISBN   978-0-76182-754-2.
  15. ↑ "Copy Information for Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion". William Blake Archive . Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  16. ↑ Eaves, Morris; Essick, Robert N.; Viscomi, Joseph (eds.). "Object description for "Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, copy E, object 15 (Bentley 15, Erdman 15, Keynes 15)"". William Blake Archive . Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  17. ↑ Tate. "William Blake's cast of characters". Tate. Tate Gallery . Retrieved 3 March 2022. Blake created his own mythology populated by a host of beings that he himself had either invented, or re-interpreted.
  18. ↑ Lobdell 2004, p. 162.
  19. ↑ Wisehart, M. K. "Ideals and Fame: A One-Act Conversation With Lord Dunsany," New York Sun Book World, 19 October 1919, p. 25
  20. ↑ Dilworth, Dianna (18 August 2011). "What Did J.R.R. Tolkien Read?". GalleyCat. Archived from the original on 17 January 2019. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
  21. ↑ Oser, Lee (Winter 1996). "Eliot, Frazer, and the Mythology of Modernism". The Southern Review. 32 (1): 183 – via ProQuest.
  22. ↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. Tree and Leaf; Mythopoeia; The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son (London: HarperCollins, 2001) [first published 1964] ISBN   978-0007105045. Pages 85–90
  23. ↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1964). Tree and Leaf . London: HarperCollins. pp. 11–70.
  24. ↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1964). Tree and Leaf . London: HarperCollins. p. 25, "Origins".
  25. ↑ Kuusela, Tommy (May 2014). "In Search of a National Epic: The use of Old Norse myths in Tolkien's vision of Middle-earth". Approaching Religion. 4 (1): 25–36. doi: 10.30664/ar.67534 .
  26. ↑ Coutras, Lisa (2016). Tolkien's Theology of Beauty: Majesty, Splendor, and Transcendence in Middle-earth. Springer. pp. 92–94. ISBN   978-1137553454.
  27. ↑ Flieger, Verlyn (2002). Splintered Light: Logos and Language in Tolkien's World. Kent State University Press. ISBN   978-0-8733-8744-6.
  28. 1 2 3 Chance 2004 , "A Mythology for Finland: Tolkien and Lönnrot as Mythmakers", pp. 277–283
  29. ↑ Lewis 1946, pp. 66–67.
  30. ↑ Menion, 2003/2004 citing essays by Tolkien using the words "fundamental things".
  31. ↑ Brown, Dave. "Real Joy and True Myth". Geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009.
  32. ↑ Tolkien, J. R. R. (2014). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 145. ISBN   978-0544363793.
  33. ↑ Roberts, Thomas (2001). The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints. Mythcon 32, 3–6 August 2001, Berkeley, California. Mythopoeic Society.
  34. ↑ Knowles, Christopher, Our Gods Wear Spandex , Weiser, pp. 120–122
  35. ↑ International Journal of Comic Art, University of Michigan, pp. 280
  36. ↑ McConnell 1979, p. 6.
  37. ↑ McConnell 1979, pp. 5, 99: "film is a perfect model of the epic paradigm: the founder of the land, the man who walls in and defines the human space of a given culture...".
  38. ↑ McConnell 1979, p. 15.
  39. ↑ McConnell 1979, p. 21.
  40. ↑ McConnell 1979, pp. 13, 83–93.
  41. ↑ Hart, 2002. Evidently quoting Moyers quoting Lucas in Time, 26 April 1999.
  42. ↑ McConnell 1979, p. 18.
  43. ↑ Lyden, John. 2000. "The Apocalyptic Cosmology of Star Wars (Abstract)." The Journal of Religion & Film 4(1).
  44. 1 2 Greydanus, Steven D. (2000–2006). "An American mythology: Why Star Wars still matters". Decent Films. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  45. ↑ Hart, 2002. Quoting Ebert on Star Wars in his series The Great Movies.
  46. ↑ Hart, Steven. 2002 April. "Galactic gasbag." Salon.com.
  47. ↑ Puterbaugh, Parke. Phish: The Biography. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 65–67. Print.
  48. ↑ "Phish.Net: The Lizards Lyrics". phish.net.
  49. ↑ "CoC: Immortal: Interview : 5/19/1999" . Retrieved 13 January 2018.
  50. ↑ "About the Society". Mythopoeic Society . Retrieved 14 January 2024.

Bibliography

Inklings

Tolkien:

C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald:

Film-making as myth-making

Lucas:

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