ABSTRACT
It is always possible to read a literary or cultural text for its mythic interest. This inevitably presupposes that other texts are of related interest, since one is chiefly involved in tracing commonly accepted paradigms. Comparison and contrast thus come into play. But of course these activities in turn depend on how one reads myth in the first place: that is, on which paradigms are of interest, and on how to interpret them. What is called ‘myth criticism’ is inseparable from what is called ‘mythography’. The latter has usually been a matter of giving priority to one particular paradigm; here we will be drawing attention to the implications of doing so.
