Theorizing Myth

by Lincoln, Bruce

• ISBN13: 9780226482019
• ISBN10: 0226482014
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-04-03
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

InTheorizing Myth,Bruce Lincoln traces the way scholars and others have used the category of "myth" to fetishize or deride certain kinds of stories, usually those told by others.He begins by showing thatmythosyielded tologosnot as part of a (mythic) "Greek miracle," but as part of struggles over political, linguistic, and epistemological authority occasioned by expanded use of writing and the practice of Athenian democracy. Lincoln then turns his attention to the period when myth was recuperated as a privileged type of narrative, a process he locates in the political and cultural ferment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here, he connects renewed enthusiasm for myth to the nexus of Romanticism, nationalism, and Aryan triumphalism, particularly the quest for a language and set of stories on which nation-states could be founded.In the final section of this wide-ranging book, Lincoln advocates a fresh approach to the study of myth, providing varied case studies to support his view of mythand scholarship on mythas ideology in narrative form.

Author Biography

Bruce Lincoln is professor of the history of religions at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
I: Mythos among the Greeks
The Prehistory of Mythos and Logos	3	(16)
From Homer through Plato	19	(28)
II: A Modern History of Myth
The History of Myth from the Renaissance to the Second World War	47	(29)
Mr. Jones's Myth of Origins	76	(25)
Nietzsche's ``Blond Beast''	101	(20)
Dumezil's German War God	121	(20)
III: New Directions
From the Second World War to the Present (and Possibly a Little Beyond)	141	(19)
Plutarch's Sibyl	160	(11)
Gautrek's Saga and the Gift Fox	171	(12)
Once Again, the Bovine's Lament	183	(9)
The Pandits and Mr. Jones	192	(15)
Epilogue: Scholarship as Myth	207	(10)
Notes	217	(74)
Index	291