Myth and Literature

This collection of thirty-four major essays devoted to the theories, methods, and problems of myth criticism offers a convenient and substantial introduction to one of the most distinctive trends in contemporary literary study. The essays (many of them previously uncollected) are arranged to lead from general considerations to analyses of specific authors. The four Part I selections constitute an informal survey of the views of myth and ritual taken by disciplines other than literature. In Part II the first six essays relate the concept of myth and ritual to general literary theory, while the final three evaluate the uses of myth in critical theory and practice. The twenty-one Part III essays, which apply myth criticism to individual literary works or authors, afford a representative sampling of the mythopoeic patterns discerned in literature from Home to Faulkner. Among the contributors are: David Bidney, Géza Róheim, Joseph Campbell, Clyde Kluckhohn, Stanley Hyman, Philip Wheelwright, Richard Chase, Harold Watts, Northrop Frye, Andrew Lytle, Philip Rahv, Francis Fergusson, Marvin Magalaner, John Lydenberg, and Harry Slochower.

"Parts I and II are substantial and useful surveys of cultural and literary theory and its development, and are pretty well packed with suggestive general ideas. But for many readers the twenty-one essays of Part III, dealing with specific and more of less familiar works, may be the most provocative. These studies exemplify mythic criticism in action, in interpretations of a wide variety of authors and works, mainly of prose fiction. . . . This volume helps to consolidate the value and the diverse uses of myth for both artist and critic. . . . [Professor Vickery's] book should appeal both to the large body of the sophisticated and to what one may imagine as an also large number of people who have known that 'myth' has been very much in the air but have not been initiated into either philosophic theory or critical practice."—Douglas Bush, Harvard Educational Review, "A collection without parallel. . . . Whether for historical interest in the fads and fashions of literary study or as the best single source for an overview of the best that has been said about the subject in the past 20 years, this collection is without peer."—Choice