Vilnius pedagogical university faculty of foreign languages department of english philology

In using myth, in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. They will not be imitators, any more than the scientist who uses the discoveries of an Einstein in pursuing his own, independent further investigations. It is simply a way of controlling, of ordering, of giving shape and significance to the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history. (Quoted by White, pp.113-114)

However, it is wrong to treat mythology employed in the contemporary literature merely as a structural aid. The main interest lies in the function of employing one or another myth, the impact it has on the novel and on the reader, which is undoubtedly more than that.

Nevertheless, some writers and critics tend to voice quite opposite approaches to the mythological novel in the twentieth century. For instance, Frank Kermode frequently wrote that myth in the modern literature is a sign of regressive tendencies. Rene Wellek thought that the method of employing myth in a novel is very dangerous for it eliminates the boundary lines between art and myth and even art and religion. Another important point comprises what is being done to myth in the modern literature. Some believe that it is vandal to alter myths, others state that myths should be altered in accordance to our present reality. Gilbert Highet was sure that “every writer who attempts to create anything on a basis of myth must add, or subtract, or alter” (Mythology in the Modern Novel, p. 82). On the other hand, E. M. Butler regreted that much alien material is added to classical myths in modern novels. One more complaint of the critics leveled against mythological novels is that they do not present myths in an optimistic light. A more strict criticism was revealed by Margaret Dalziel in her lecture on “Myth in Modern English Literature”:


The free use of myth, especially in novels, has now become part of a literary fashion of writing […] The age and associations, the suggestive and evocative power of myths have lured many people into using them as images for no very good reason, and the fashion has, I think, given rise to much pretentious and therefore bad writing. (Quoted by White, p.87)
Consequently, there are many opinions and different approaches to the mythological literature, but the most important fact is that despite them myths very often appear in the works of the contemporary writers. Therefore, critics and literary scholars cannot negate the fact that mythology in one way or another penetrates in the literature of our times; and writers, employing this traditional heritage, are free to do what they want in order to achieve their aims.

2. 
   MEANINGS OF MYTH
   

Myth is one of the central phenomena in cultural history and the oldest means of conceptualizing the surrounding reality and human nature. Furthermore, it is the cradle of diverse spheres of culture such as literature, art, religion and philosophy. For these reasons myth attracted scholars and philosophers of different epochs and ideology. Each of them was trying to understand the nature of myth, to work up the concept of mythological thinking, to expose the fountainhead of mythological consciousness. The modern theory of myth was coming into existence through opposition and cooperation of diverse schools dealing with its phenomenon. It is essential to depict miscellaneous versions or meanings of myth for it will help to expose the concept suitable for the present study.
Antique philosophers, stoics and sophists treated myths as an allegory. Plato (427-347 B.C.) symbolically saw in the myth a living universal creature. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) emphasized the narrative of myths, approached them as plot or stories. Neo-Platonists compared myths to logical categories. Euhemerus (working in 4 B.C.), a Greek philosopher and mythographer, was famous for his radical interpretations of myths. He thought they were part of a long historical tradition by which the Gods were originally men, known for some great historical feat or some important social and cultural advancement and later raised to god-hood.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century, Joseph-François Lafitau (1681-1746) interpreted the pagan mythology as the germ of Christianity. The French writer Fontenelle (1657-1757), on the contrary, argued that searching for primary causes brought the savages to false ideas and superstitions. Voltaire (1694-1778) criticized Lafitau and saw in mythology only falsehood and lies of the priests. Besides, the eighteenth century was the beginning of the crisis of mythologies. The first serious philosophy of myth belongs to Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), who came to a conclusion that primitive men personified nature and that myths are the source of metaphors and other poetic devices.
Later brothers Karl Schlegel (1772-1829) and August Schlegel (1767-1845), Schelling (1775-1854) and other philosophers belonging to the Romantic school treated myth as an esthetic phenomenon, a symbolic model of any art. The end of the nineteenth century is characterized by the appearance of the so called remythologisation. Richard Wagner (1813- 1883), Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Ernst Cassirer (1874-1945), and Thomas Mann (1875-1955) appreciated artistic, psychological and philosophical value of myth. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), Alfred Adler (1870-1937) and Carl Jung (1875-1961) emphasized the category of the unconscious. Finally, mythologists of the late twentieth century Joseph Campbell and Northrop Frye (1912-1991) treated myth as a universal pattern shaping humanity.
All these scholars and philosophers contributed to the study of the phenomenon of myth, however, “there exists as little agreement about the concept of myth as about most other important concepts of literary criticism” (p. vii), as Joseph P. Strelka wrote in his book Literary Criticism and Myth. Traditionally, myth is a narrative originating in the early times which personifies natural phenomena. According to later interpretation, it is a historically stipulated variety of cultural conscience. The modern view approaches myth as uncritically perceived vision. Consequently, this term roughly has the three meanings: 1) ancient legend or story; 2) myth-making or mythological cosmogenesis; 3) particular condition of the state of mind caused by historical and cultural factors. Each of these meanings encompasses many more aspects; however, they are beyond the scope of this study. It is of interest for this paper that in the twentieth century myth became one of the most important categories due to the third meaning – a particular state of mind.

3. 
   CATEGORIES OF MYTHOLOGICAL FICTION
   

There exist particular types of mythological fiction where a motif can be employed. Theodore Ziolkowski distinguishes two approaches to mythological literature: the first is retelling myths from a contemporary point of view; the second is setting modern novels “in the mold of traditional myths” (Quoted by White, p. 51). Another critic, E. W. Herd, divides mythological fiction into five groups:

1.