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Mythopoeia

February 16, 2023

For the poem by J. R. R. Tolkien, see Mythopoeia (poem).

Mythopoeia (Ancient Greek: μυθοποιία, romanized: muthopoiía, lit. 'myth-making'), or mythopoesis, is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose, poetry, or other literary forms. This meaning of the word follows its use by J. R. R. Tolkien in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction. Mythopoeia is also the act of creating a mythology.[1]

Genre

 
Joseph Campbell wrote about the role of created mythologies in the modern world.[2]

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] It was adopted by J. R. R. Tolkien as the title of one of his poems, written in 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf.[6]

While many literary works carry mythic themes, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoesis. Mythopoeic authors include Tolkien,[7] C. S. Lewis,[8] William Blake,[9] H. P. Lovecraft,[10] Lord Dunsany,[11] Mervyn Peake[12] and Robert E. Howard.[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."[7]

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.[15][16]

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

Further information: Tolkien's legendarium and Mythopoeia (poem)

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.[7] 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 read and was inspired by Elias Lönnrot's reconstructed mythology for Finland, the Kalevala.[25] Painting The Defense of the Sampo, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1896

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."[25] 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".[25] 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."[25]

C. S. Lewis

 
C. S. Lewis created the world of Narnia.

At the time that Tolkien debated the usefulness of myth and mythopoeia with C. S. Lewis in 1931, Lewis was a theist[28] and liked but was skeptical of mythology, taking the position that myths were "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'".[7][29] 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."[30] 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.[8] 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".[31]

In film

Further information: Worldbuilding, Fictional universe, and Mythology (fiction)

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."[32] 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."[33] In a broad analysis, McConnell associates the American western movies and romance movies with the Arthurian mythology,[34] adventure and action movies with the "epic world" mythologies of founding societies,[35] 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.[36]

Star Wars

 
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."[37] 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."[38] 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.[39] Steven D. Greydanus of The Decent Film Guide agrees, calling Star Wars a "work of epic mythopoeia."[40] In fact, Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia:[40]

"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."[41] 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."[42]

Superheroes

In The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints, Thomas Roberts observes that:[43]

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'.

Superman, for example, sent from the "heavens" by his father to save humanity, is a messiah-type of character in the Biblical tradition.[44] Furthermore, along with the rest of DC Comic's Justice League of America, Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower in the skies; just like the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus.[45]

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.[46] 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."[47]

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.[48]

Organizations

The Mythopoeic Society exists to promote mythopoeic literature, partly by way of the Mythopoeic Awards.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "mythopoeia". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  2. ^ a b 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. ^ . ccil.org. Archived from the original on 9 January 2006.
  7. ^ a b c d Dundes, quoted by Adcox, 2003.
  8. ^ a b Abate, Michelle Ann; Weldy, Lance (2012). C.S. Lewis. London: Palgrave. p. 131. ISBN 978-1137284976.
  9. ^ "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
  10. ^ 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.
  11. ^ "Mythology And Mythology In Percy Jackson By Percy Jackson". Bartleby research. Retrieved 2 March 2022.
  12. ^ Sisson, Richard (2000). "Irmin Schmidt's Fantasy Opera 'Gormenghast' on CD". Peake Studies. 7 (1): 14–16. JSTOR 24776036.
  13. ^ "The Demarcation of Sword and Sorcery – Black Gate". Retrieved 12 May 2022.
  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. 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. ^ a b c d Chance 2004, "A Mythology for Finland: Tolkien and Lönnrot as Mythmakers", pp. 277–283
  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 978-0873387446.
  28. ^ Lewis 1946, pp. 66–67.
  29. ^ Menion, 2003/2004 citing essays by Tolkien using the words "fundamental things".
  30. ^ Brown, Dave. . Geocities.com. Archived from the original on 26 October 2009.
  31. ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (2014). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 145. ISBN 978-0544363793.
  32. ^ McConnell 1979, p. 6.
  33. ^ 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...".
  34. ^ McConnell 1979, p. 15.
  35. ^ McConnell 1979, p. 21.
  36. ^ McConnell 1979, pp. 13, 83–93.
  37. ^ Hart, 2002. Evidently quoting Moyers quoting Lucas in Time, 26 April 1999.
  38. ^ McConnell 1979, p. 18.
  39. ^ Lyden, John. 2000. " (Abstract)." The Journal of Religion & Film 4(1).
  40. ^ a b Greydanus, Steven D. (2000–2006). "An American mythology: Why Star Wars still matters". Decent Films. from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
  41. ^ Hart, 2002. Quoting Ebert on Star Wars in his series The Great Movies.
  42. ^ Hart, Steven. 2002 April. "." Salon.com.
  43. ^ Roberts, Thomas (2001). The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints. Mythcon 32, 3-6 August 2001, Berkeley, California. Mythopoeic Society.
  44. ^ Knowles, Christopher, Our Gods Wear Spandex, Weiser, pp. 120–122
  45. ^ International Journal of Comic Art, University of Michigan, pp. 280
  46. ^ Puterbaugh, Parke. Phish: The Biography. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 65–67. Print.
  47. ^ "Phish.Net: The Lizards Lyrics". phish.net.
  48. ^ "CoC: Immortal: Interview : 5/19/1999". Retrieved 13 January 2018.

Bibliography

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mythopoeia.
Inklings

Tolkien:

  • Adcox, John. 2003. "Can Fantasy be Myth? Mythopoeia and The Lord of the Rings." The Newsletter of the Mythic Imagination Institute, September/October 2003.
  • Menion, Michael. 2003/2004. "." Firstworld.ca. (commentary on the poem "Mythopoeia").
  • Chance, Jane (April 2004). Tolkien and the Invention of Myth: A Reader. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2301-1.

C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald:

Film-making as myth-making
  • McConnell, Frank D. (1979). Storytelling and Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature. ISBN 978-0-19-503210-9.

Lucas:

  • Hart, Steven. 2002 April. "." Salon.com.
  • Greydanus, Steven D. 2006. "An American Mythology: Why Star Wars Still Matters." Decent Film Guide.
  • Lyden, John. 2000. " (Abstract)." The Journal of Religion & Film 4(1).

February 16, 2023
mythopoeia, poem, tolkien, poem, ancient, greek, μυθοποιία, romanized, muthopoiía, myth, making, mythopoesis, narrative, genre, modern, literature, film, where, artificial, fictionalized, mythology, created, writer, prose, poetry, other, literary, forms, this,. For the poem by J R R Tolkien see Mythopoeia poem Mythopoeia Ancient Greek my8opoiia romanized muthopoiia lit myth making or mythopoesis is a narrative genre in modern literature and film where an artificial or fictionalized mythology is created by the writer of prose poetry or other literary forms This meaning of the word follows its use by J R R Tolkien in the 1930s The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction Mythopoeia is also the act of creating a mythology 1 Contents 1 Genre 2 In literature 2 1 Antecedents 2 2 J R R Tolkien 2 3 C S Lewis 3 In film 3 1 Star Wars 3 2 Superheroes 4 In music 5 Organizations 6 See also 7 References 8 BibliographyGenre Edit Joseph Campbell wrote about the role of created mythologies in the modern world 2 The term mythopoeia comes from Hellenistic Greek muthopoiia my8opoiia meaning myth making an alternative is mythopoesis my8opoihsis 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 It was adopted by J R R Tolkien as the title of one of his poems written in 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf 6 While many literary works carry mythic themes only a few approach the dense self referentiality and purpose of mythopoesis Mythopoeic authors include Tolkien 7 C S Lewis 8 William Blake 9 H P Lovecraft 10 Lord Dunsany 11 Mervyn Peake 12 and Robert E Howard 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 7 In literature EditAntecedents Edit William Blake s mythology is both written and illustrated Here Los is tormented at his smithy by the Spectre in an illustration to Jerusalem 15 16 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 Pegana 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 Edit Further information Tolkien s legendarium and Mythopoeia poem 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 7 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 read and was inspired by Elias Lonnrot s reconstructed mythology for Finland the Kalevala 25 Painting The Defense of the Sampo Akseli Gallen Kallela 1896 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 Lonnrot 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 25 In her view Tolkien who had read the Kalevala envisioned himself doing exactly the same thing except that the mythology would be entirely fictive Lonnrot had travelled the backwoods of Finland for 20 years collecting stories and songs from unlettered peasants 25 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 25 C S Lewis Edit C S Lewis created the world of Narnia At the time that Tolkien debated the usefulness of myth and mythopoeia with C S Lewis in 1931 Lewis was a theist 28 and liked but was skeptical of mythology taking the position that myths were lies and therefore worthless even though breathed through silver 7 29 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 30 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 8 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 31 In film EditFurther information Worldbuilding Fictional universe and Mythology fiction 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 32 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 33 In a broad analysis McConnell associates the American western movies and romance movies with the Arthurian mythology 34 adventure and action movies with the epic world mythologies of founding societies 35 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 36 Star Wars Edit 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 37 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 38 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 39 Steven D Greydanus of The Decent Film Guide agrees calling Star Wars a work of epic mythopoeia 40 In fact Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia 40 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 41 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 42 Superheroes Edit In The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints Thomas Roberts observes that 43 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 Superman for example sent from the heavens by his father to save humanity is a messiah type of character in the Biblical tradition 44 Furthermore along with the rest of DC Comic s Justice League of America Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower in the skies just like the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus 45 In music EditIn 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 46 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 47 The black metal band Immortal s lyricist Harald Naevdal 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 48 Organizations EditThe Mythopoeic Society exists to promote mythopoeic literature partly by way of the Mythopoeic Awards See also EditCampaign setting Constructed world Hero s journey Mythic fiction literature that is rooted in tropes and themes of existing instead of more artificial mythology List of religious ideas in fantasy fictionReferences Edit a b mythopoeia Merriam Webster Dictionary Retrieved 1 November 2022 a b Campbell Joseph 1988 Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth Bill Moyers New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary mythopoeia Retrieved 1 November 2022 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 Mythopoeia by J R R Tolkien ccil org Archived from the original on 9 January 2006 a b c d Dundes quoted by Adcox 2003 a b Abate Michelle Ann Weldy Lance 2012 C S Lewis London Palgrave p 131 ISBN 978 1137284976 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 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 Mythology And Mythology In Percy Jackson By Percy Jackson Bartleby research Retrieved 2 March 2022 Sisson Richard 2000 Irmin Schmidt s Fantasy Opera Gormenghast on CD Peake Studies 7 1 14 16 JSTOR 24776036 The Demarcation of Sword and Sorcery Black Gate Retrieved 12 May 2022 Stambovsky Phillip 2004 Myth and the Limits of Reason University Press of America ISBN 978 0 76182 754 2 Copy Information for Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion William Blake Archive Retrieved 11 September 2013 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 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 Lobdell 2004 p 162 Wisehart M K Ideals and Fame A One Act Conversation With Lord Dunsany New York Sun Book World 19 October 1919 p 25 Dilworth Dianna 18 August 2011 What Did J R R Tolkien Read GalleyCat Retrieved 24 March 2018 Oser Lee Winter 1996 Eliot Frazer and the Mythology of Modernism The Southern Review 32 1 183 via ProQuest 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 Tolkien J R R 1964 Tree and Leaf London HarperCollins pp 11 70 Tolkien J R R 1964 Tree and Leaf London HarperCollins p 25 Origins a b c d Chance 2004 A Mythology for Finland Tolkien and Lonnrot as Mythmakers pp 277 283 Coutras Lisa 2016 Tolkien s Theology of Beauty Majesty Splendor and Transcendence in Middle earth Springer pp 92 94 ISBN 978 1137553454 Flieger Verlyn 2002 Splintered Light Logos and Language in Tolkien s World Kent State University Press ISBN 978 0873387446 Lewis 1946 pp 66 67 Menion 2003 2004 citing essays by Tolkien using the words fundamental things Brown Dave Real Joy and True Myth Geocities com Archived from the original on 26 October 2009 Tolkien J R R 2014 The Letters of J R R Tolkien Houghton Mifflin Harcourt p 145 ISBN 978 0544363793 McConnell 1979 p 6 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 McConnell 1979 p 15 McConnell 1979 p 21 McConnell 1979 pp 13 83 93 Hart 2002 Evidently quoting Moyers quoting Lucas in Time 26 April 1999 McConnell 1979 p 18 Lyden John 2000 The Apocalyptic Cosmology of Star Wars Abstract The Journal of Religion amp Film 4 1 a b 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 Hart 2002 Quoting Ebert on Star Wars in his series The Great Movies Hart Steven 2002 April Galactic gasbag Salon com Roberts Thomas 2001 The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints Mythcon 32 3 6 August 2001 Berkeley California Mythopoeic Society Knowles Christopher Our Gods Wear Spandex Weiser pp 120 122 International Journal of Comic Art University of Michigan pp 280 Puterbaugh Parke Phish The Biography Philadelphia Da Capo Press 65 67 Print Phish Net The Lizards Lyrics phish net CoC Immortal Interview 5 19 1999 Retrieved 13 January 2018 Bibliography Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mythopoeia InklingsTolkien Adcox John 2003 Can Fantasy be Myth Mythopoeia and The Lord of the Rings The Newsletter of the Mythic Imagination Institute September October 2003 Menion Michael 2003 2004 Tolkien Elves and Art in J R R Tolkien s Aesthetics Firstworld ca commentary on the poem Mythopoeia Chance Jane April 2004 Tolkien and the Invention of Myth A Reader University Press of Kentucky ISBN 0 8131 2301 1 C S Lewis George MacDonald Lobdell Jared 1 July 2004 The Scientifiction Novels of C S Lewis Space and Time in the Ransom Stories McFarland p 162 ISBN 0 7864 8386 5 Lewis C S 1946 The Great Divorce Collins 0 00 628056 0 Film making as myth makingMcConnell Frank D 1979 Storytelling and Mythmaking Images from Film and Literature ISBN 978 0 19 503210 9 Lucas Hart Steven 2002 April Galactic gasbag Salon com Greydanus Steven D 2006 An American Mythology Why Star Wars Still Matters Decent Film Guide Lyden John 2000 The Apocalyptic Cosmology of Star Wars Abstract The Journal of Religion amp Film 4 1 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Mythopoeia amp oldid 1125504925, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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