ABSTRACT

Myth' is one of those words which it has become almost impossible to use without apologetic quotation marks. It was the early romantic poets and philosophers who started our modern cult of myth. This chapter begins with a rough preliminary classification of the kinds of myths to be found in literature. But the most natural view of myth in the modern world has been the fairy tale conception. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is the most perfect example of the romantic-religious cult of myth. Wagner's treatment of the Tristan myth fulfills the requirements of Malinowski's definition of the religious myth. A real study of Dante's masterly way with his vast heritage of myths would require not minutes but years; and it would require a combination of erudition and tact which is not available. One can sympathize with those numerous writers who use 'myth' to mean only wishful thinking or Machiavellian obscurantism.