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ONE OF THE IRONIES of the study of Scandinavian mythology is that the texts that comprise the object of such study owe their existence to the technology of writing on [...]

Around the minimums that requires an intercultural dialog, this text sets out to explore a privileged space that allows to fulfill the exigencies of the intercultural resource, this is a mythical symbolic background that emerges from the literary works. It is stated that in such background, that is updated in diverse cultural forms, but in special way in Literature, it is possible to let itself be confronted by any cultural universe, because it has that quality of speaking to our human condition in general, but without that reason losing its cultural determination; this thanks to the mediation of the symbol. This exposition will be shown in a specific case, in one of the most important novels of our continent, Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contends that the Deuteronomic‐1 legend of the book of Joshua was formed into its mythical cyclical form through a process of oral transmission. As the oral stories told about an original source event were transformed into a community story it began to take on a liturgical form. This article explains the neuropsychological aspects of this natural process and also highlights how the cultural shift in the 12th century B.C.E. preserved the form of the Deuteronomic‐1 legend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jean-Luc Nancy's provocative second chapter of The Inoperative Community, "Myth Interrupted," sets to redefine the relationship between myth and literature. This paper puts Nancy's new perspective to test through juxtaposing Abd al-Wahhab al-Bayati's myth of Orpheus with Maurice Blanchot's. The assumption is that when literature stages myth and presents it from various perspectives, it does so not to invoke or allegorize its content through the letter, but rather to interrupt it. This new discovery of the "untraceability" of myth leaves us with a different perspective of literature as that language which cuts across myth and exposes its limit and as a language that inhabits myth only to interrupt it. Blanchot's interest in Orpheus, as it is articulated in his novel/story Thomas l'obscur (the 1950 New Version) and in his chapter on "Orpheus's Gaze" in The Space of Literature, and al-Bayati's reference to Orpheus in his poetic collections He Who Comes and Does Not Come, Death in Life, and Writing on the Mud thematize this playful staging of the myth of Orpheus. Both seem to follow a different path with the same myth. Blanchot disregards the ending of the Orpheus story, and al-Bayati disregards the gaze. However, it is not just selection, but modification that is at work here: both shape their chosen materials in conformity to a specific need. The logic that binds the two writers together in relation to myth and literature expresses itself not only in the choice of the same myth, but they also have in common the shared debt to this classical material and more importantly in their (re)definition of this material. The point of departure between the two of them in their treatment (reinterpretation) of Orpheus is that Blanchot is looking at the effect of death on writing, while al-Bayati is exploring the effect of writing on death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the revival of classical myth in contemporary poetry in England and the U.S. Poems about ancient myths appear regularly, not only in small literary journals but in major magazines. There are two basic methods contemporary poets use to treat myths in poetry: direct and indirect. In the direct method the poet presents, or recreates, mythic characters in one or more situations or speaks directly about mythic characters and/or situations. In other words, the myth is the literal subject of the poem. In the indirect treatment the poet alludes to mythic characters and/or mythic situations in the course of presenting non-mythic characters and incidents. The mythic allusion is the basic technique used to illustrate or enrich the literal subject of the poem.

This article reports that in an interview published in D.J. Enright's Poets of the 1950's, Philip Larkin rejected "belief in tradition" or a common "myth-kitty." Writing to Agenda in 1977, Larkin shrugged off his casual phrase as in no sense the expression of a creed or philosophy, but this did not prevent C.H. Sisson, in an essay called "Poetry and Myth" in the same issue, from taking Larkin's dislike of "tradition," in so far as this is reflected in the modernist technique of literary allusion, as a sort of "apologia," which he then proceeded to assail with some vigor. It is puzzling to see how in creating a universe afresh a poet can rely on evoking everyday reality with precision and reflecting on everyday experience with lucidity— as Larkin does supremely well— while denying to himself the rich resources of mythopoeia.