ABSTRACT
If myth can be seen as one of the structures of desire, as when the ancient mythical accounts of exclusion are adapted to the new faiths of psychoanalysis, myth is equally, and necessarily, both a social orientation and a social justification.1 Now we move on from the would-be synchronic to the more diachronic dimension of mythopoesis. To each his or her myth. Each mise en scène in the performance of life or the performance of death requires different key narratives. What is important to remember is that the choice of narrative and the uses to which it is put depend not just on personal experience but on the social and historical context which determines and mediates the discourse of both addresser and addressee. Different historical periods breed new myths, but there is also a stock of archetypal stories which resurface with changes in social and cultural conditions. Attitudes to culture are reflected not just in the growth but in the revival of myth. For example, the myth of the divine child, which has just been examined in detail, occurs all over the world and in different historical epochs. We will find it recurring in different forms in the case studies which follow. But, as we have seen, early variants, which have been considered as mere literature, can gain new shape and new credence and come into fashion again, as cultural changes take place, or when they are reshaped in a powerful conceptual system such as the Freudian.
