Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature

Extract

In Don DeLillo's 1985 novel White Noise , a sociologist explains the postmodern significance of television: “It's like a myth being born right there in our living room, like something we know in a dreamlike and preconscious way. I'm very enthused, Jack” (51). The passage hints at several of the issues involved in considering the place of mythology in studies of the novel: whether or not it is possible to have a modern myth, how relevant oral storytelling (from which myths are born) is to literary fiction, and what role the preconscious or unconscious self has in either mythology or literature (see psychoanalytic ). Perhaps the fact that a contemporary novelist such as DeLillo can reconfigure the novel form through references to mythology and some of its key tenets suggests the enduring importance of myths to human perception and the writer's imagination. Moreover, the novel, especially in the twentieth century, provides examples of the variety of functions served by mythology in the shaping of modern fiction. Depending on how the parameters of myth are defined and on how they are applied to literature, a case could also be made that myth is such a basic and vital aspect of human nature that it infuses the novel structurally, linguistically, and thematically. Opposing views point to the incompatibility of myths and literature. Northrop Frye (1912–91), one of the main advocates ... log in or subscribe to read full text