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.
