ABSTRACT
So many possibilities open themselves up for tracing the line from cultural myths to literature that one can easily be led to believe that the task is either hopeless or an exercise in the obvious. To begin with, one can simply assert that literature is merely a variation on or an extension of cultural myths, that it shares the same basis, the same techniques—per-haps honed to a greater degree of refinement as time passes. Of course, there can be no question that literature is, indeed, an extension of cultural myths, that whether one is speaking of the Iliad or of Catch-22, literature bases itself on a constellation of mutually understood and accepted reference points that themselves provide the material the literary artist employs to achieve his or her goal.
