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Laurence Coupe offers students a comprehensive overview of the development of myth, showing how mythic themes, structures and symbols persist in literature and entertainment today. This introductory volume:
illustrates the relation between myth, culture and literature with discussions of poetry, fiction, film and popular song explores uses made of the term ‘myth’ within the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis discusses the association between modernism, postmodernism, myth and history familiarizes the reader with themes such as the dying god, the quest for the Grail, the relation between ‘chaos’ and ‘cosmos’, and the vision of the end of time demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth.
Fully updated and revised in this new edition, Myth is both a concise introduction and a useful tool to students first approaching the topic, while also a valuable contribution to the study of myth.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 21, 2020
کتاب به نظرم از سواد مترجم کمی بالاتر بود و من خیلی جاها به سختی منظور مترجم رو می فهمیدم. سعیم رو برای فهمیدن کتاب کردم، ولی شاید ۸۰ درصدشو فهمیدم.
یکی از کارهایی که اسطوره کوپ برام کرد این بود که اطلاعات جسته و گریخته قبلی رو طبقه بندی کرد ، جوری که سیر مطالعاتی رو می تونم طبق اون تدوین کنم. با آرای متفکرین معروف مثل فریزر، فروید، یونگ، کنت، الیاده، ریکورد، پل ریکور،لوی_استراوس، رنه جرالد، رولان بارت، بارتون، و از همه مهم تر نورتروپ فرای و فردریک جیمسون درباره اسطوره آشنا شدم، ردپای نظرات مارینا وارنر رو تو آثاری مثل ویچر پیدا کردم و همین طور فهمیدم که تو زمینه فلسفه و روانشناسی کمیتم لنگ می زنه و باید حداقل یه مطالعات ابتدایی در این دو فیلد داشته باشم.
یکی از کارهایی که اسطوره کوپ برام کرد این بود که اطلاعات جسته و گریخته قبلی رو طبقه بندی کرد ، جوری که سیر مطالعاتی رو می تونم طبق اون تدوین کنم. با آرای متفکرین معروف مثل فریزر، فروید، یونگ، کنت، الیاده، ریکورد، پل ریکور،لوی_استراوس، رنه جرالد، رولان بارت، بارتون، و از همه مهم تر نورتروپ فرای و فردریک جیمسون درباره اسطوره آشنا شدم، ردپای نظرات مارینا وارنر رو تو آثاری مثل ویچر پیدا کردم و همین طور فهمیدم که تو زمینه فلسفه و روانشناسی کمیتم لنگ می زنه و باید حداقل یه مطالعات ابتدایی در این دو فیلد داشته باشم.
January 20, 2024
5 stars, not at all due to my understanding of myth theory but because this is gonna be the backbone, the ENTIRE SPINE, of the 1st part of my diss. thank you laurence.
January 13, 2017
This book is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read.
The structure of the book made it interesting, the author certainly researched this book thoroughly. The author mentions Mircea Eliade's The sacred and the Profane, I'm currently reading this book as well, and how archaic man develops across history certainly shows that human nature has still more evolution levels to achieve. Thanks to this book, I added more than 50 authors to my must read list, such as Fredric Jameson's 'The Political Unconscious', Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale', Vattimo's 'The Transparent Society', and Alan Watts.
These authors mentioned above and others mentioned in the bibliography certainly will appeal to other readers of philosophy and literature.
I recommend this book to people who would like to know the history of how myths developed across time and how some political aspects of religion and other reasons affected myths or literature in general.
The structure of the book made it interesting, the author certainly researched this book thoroughly. The author mentions Mircea Eliade's The sacred and the Profane, I'm currently reading this book as well, and how archaic man develops across history certainly shows that human nature has still more evolution levels to achieve. Thanks to this book, I added more than 50 authors to my must read list, such as Fredric Jameson's 'The Political Unconscious', Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale', Vattimo's 'The Transparent Society', and Alan Watts.
These authors mentioned above and others mentioned in the bibliography certainly will appeal to other readers of philosophy and literature.
I recommend this book to people who would like to know the history of how myths developed across time and how some political aspects of religion and other reasons affected myths or literature in general.
October 28, 2016
I found this book through the favorites list of another Goodreads member, whose review of another book I liked struck me as particularly insightful. While we've never met (or even spoken online), sites like this allow me to feel a certain intellectual kinship with individuals whom I might otherwise have to spend significant time with before getting to that point; immediacy is enticing.
Without getting too long-winded, a book like this appeals to me on several levels:
As an aspiring screenwriter, it's important for me to understand narrative structures. This work lays out a few and explains how they work while situating them in their historical contexts. Coupe also uses Apocalypse Now, one of my favorite films, as a critical text across several chapters in this book.
As an amateur psychologist, I know that people tell stories about their lives in order to make sense of the world, therefore any work that concerns itself with dissecting story structure I'll find inherently interesting. Understanding is a prerequisite for meaningful change.
As a once-child, I used to spend afternoons gobbling up Greek and Norse mythology from the d'Aulaires, so my continued interest in the topic (and now meta-topic) of mythology is not altogether a mystery. I like knowing that others are as fascinated (in truth leagues more) as I am about these topics.
As a puzzle-lover, I view books like this as puzzles; the complexity of Coupe's comparisons demands unraveling. Yes, I am convinced that a good portion of it, especially in Part I, is complete sophistry (which is why this nets only four stars), but figuring out what steps Coupe took to arrive at his conclusions is still entertaining. What can I say? Our brains have a natural affinity for pattern-matching.
If nothing else, learning new words like kerygma and Euhemerism is always enjoyable.
Favorite quotes
"…the ideal of the sacred presupposes the reality of the profane. Without the feeling of having fallen, the desire for paradise would not make sense." [p.53]
On allegorical interpretation: "The narrative is not allowed to exceed the argument; the medium is not allowed to exceed the message. Allegory is domesticated myth." [p.97], and: "Once the Oedipal complex becomes a contrivance for slotting texts into place, then literary mythopoeia is effectively denied." [p.124]
"…the use of biographical information enforces the realist principle that the meaning of fictions are external to the workings of narrative. The fact of Shakespeare's father's death is used to rationalize, and so negate, the enigmatic power of the text." [p.124/125]
"Bourgeois ideology pretends that the cultural construction is a natural phenomenon." [p.148]
Without getting too long-winded, a book like this appeals to me on several levels:
As an aspiring screenwriter, it's important for me to understand narrative structures. This work lays out a few and explains how they work while situating them in their historical contexts. Coupe also uses Apocalypse Now, one of my favorite films, as a critical text across several chapters in this book.
As an amateur psychologist, I know that people tell stories about their lives in order to make sense of the world, therefore any work that concerns itself with dissecting story structure I'll find inherently interesting. Understanding is a prerequisite for meaningful change.
As a once-child, I used to spend afternoons gobbling up Greek and Norse mythology from the d'Aulaires, so my continued interest in the topic (and now meta-topic) of mythology is not altogether a mystery. I like knowing that others are as fascinated (in truth leagues more) as I am about these topics.
As a puzzle-lover, I view books like this as puzzles; the complexity of Coupe's comparisons demands unraveling. Yes, I am convinced that a good portion of it, especially in Part I, is complete sophistry (which is why this nets only four stars), but figuring out what steps Coupe took to arrive at his conclusions is still entertaining. What can I say? Our brains have a natural affinity for pattern-matching.
If nothing else, learning new words like kerygma and Euhemerism is always enjoyable.
Favorite quotes
"…the ideal of the sacred presupposes the reality of the profane. Without the feeling of having fallen, the desire for paradise would not make sense." [p.53]
On allegorical interpretation: "The narrative is not allowed to exceed the argument; the medium is not allowed to exceed the message. Allegory is domesticated myth." [p.97], and: "Once the Oedipal complex becomes a contrivance for slotting texts into place, then literary mythopoeia is effectively denied." [p.124]
"…the use of biographical information enforces the realist principle that the meaning of fictions are external to the workings of narrative. The fact of Shakespeare's father's death is used to rationalize, and so negate, the enigmatic power of the text." [p.124/125]
"Bourgeois ideology pretends that the cultural construction is a natural phenomenon." [p.148]
Want to read
March 4, 2016اسطوره / لارنس کوپ / تهران، شرکتِ انتشاراتِ علمی و فرهنگی / چاپِ دوم 1390
اسطوره
«اساطیر» جزءِ مهمی از محتوای ادبی هستند. محتوایی که با «اسطورهسرایی» روایتهایی انسانی را بازآفرینی میکنند و به انسانها کمک میکنند تا کموکیفِ دنیای خود را بهتر بفهمند. [4]
اسطوره
«اساطیر» جزءِ مهمی از محتوای ادبی هستند. محتوایی که با «اسطورهسرایی» روایتهایی انسانی را بازآفرینی میکنند و به انسانها کمک میکنند تا کموکیفِ دنیای خود را بهتر بفهمند. [4]
November 27, 2022
Note that despite the generality of the title, this book is not about Myth generally, but particularly about the use of myth in literary criticism. The author describes many different theories about the development and use of myth, derived from the fields of anthropology, psychology, biblical exegesis and others, and illustrates them with analyses of a range of stories from ancient myths to modernist masterpieces (with detours to cinema and rock music).
Something I particularly liked about this is the way the author blurs the distinction between mythography (writing about myths) and mythopoeia (creating new myths). He argues that a new interpretation of a myth can have the effect of a new myth itself, and he argues for the imaginative power of "radical typology" which, while allegorically reinterpreting an older myth in a new context, also leaves itself open to further, future reinterpretation.
Something I particularly liked about this is the way the author blurs the distinction between mythography (writing about myths) and mythopoeia (creating new myths). He argues that a new interpretation of a myth can have the effect of a new myth itself, and he argues for the imaginative power of "radical typology" which, while allegorically reinterpreting an older myth in a new context, also leaves itself open to further, future reinterpretation.
February 21, 2020
I read this book as part of reference material I used for a critical study. What I like about Coupe is that he doesn't rely overtly on the reference material of others, and his own critical voice and opinions are well devised and thought out. His analysis is broken down in parts: Reading Myth and Mythic Reading, each section containing sections devoted to Oder, Chaos, Ends, Truth, Psyche and History. In this short work he covers a lot of ground across diverse media material but always returns to his heading concept as not to isolate his own theory as a critical study of that particular subject material.
July 22, 2009
Does myth have a place within our contemporary/technological society? What place do gods, magic, and religious ritual secure in the modern world. This book explores myth from the assumption that the signals of myth will live behind even the most evolved and scientific environment, it is all a matter of perception.
The world is a live, and magic is afoot.
I really enjoyed this examination of three types of myth (creation, fertility and hero)in relation to the movie Apocalypse Now. By exploring the influences behind Coppola's movie, Coupe engages a shopping list of literary and pop influences including large sections on T.S.Eliot's "The Wasteland", Jim Morrison's lyrics, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, the speeches surrounding 9/11, the books of Genesis and Revelation (in comparison to one another and in comparison to Grail hero myths). Coupe wraps up the entire discussion by positing that the loss of myth is a loss of environment - if the natural world is not alive then it is a "wasteland". The ecocritical twist at the end bordered on high rhetoric and sentimentality - yet it didn't come off as either apocalyptic sounding ("Generations from the future are calling back asking, "What are you doing!"), but rather modulated with a realistic portrayal of the true issues facing environmentalists working in all fields.
I was fascinated with this book from beginning to end, and I must note that this book was written in 2009 - so examples are startingly fresh and timely.
Read in one day.
The world is a live, and magic is afoot.
I really enjoyed this examination of three types of myth (creation, fertility and hero)in relation to the movie Apocalypse Now. By exploring the influences behind Coppola's movie, Coupe engages a shopping list of literary and pop influences including large sections on T.S.Eliot's "The Wasteland", Jim Morrison's lyrics, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, the speeches surrounding 9/11, the books of Genesis and Revelation (in comparison to one another and in comparison to Grail hero myths). Coupe wraps up the entire discussion by positing that the loss of myth is a loss of environment - if the natural world is not alive then it is a "wasteland". The ecocritical twist at the end bordered on high rhetoric and sentimentality - yet it didn't come off as either apocalyptic sounding ("Generations from the future are calling back asking, "What are you doing!"), but rather modulated with a realistic portrayal of the true issues facing environmentalists working in all fields.
I was fascinated with this book from beginning to end, and I must note that this book was written in 2009 - so examples are startingly fresh and timely.
Read in one day.
August 4, 2020
resource book (required reading) for Mythology course - Apocalypse Now as a resource throughout the text, so difficult to follow the references if you haven't seen the movie
October 27, 2012
Myth remains one of those contested terms that can often be misunderstood as meaning wrong, when myths have great social, cultural, and political power, and pervade most of our ways of making sense of our world and our lives. Coupe has got well beyond the myths of myth to explore the meanings and use of the term and notion in both a range of subject areas - anthropology, literature and classical studies - as well as a range of theoretical approaches including psychoanalysis, Marxism and the spawn of their intellectual interaction, cultural studies. A good place to start any investigation of meaning of myth and the functioning of texts.
December 22, 2009
For a review of the book please see my website: Myth
July 7, 2010
Good read, quite a thick read, not really suggested for the casual reader or one with a passing interest in the subject.
April 11, 2014
"I've read this before, but remember struggling to keep up the first time around, so thought I would give it another shot."
October 25, 2015
A brief summary of the theories of Myth - mythologization, demythologization, remythologization and lots more!
January 27, 2016
Plain obvious
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews