Myth (The New Critical Idiom) - Softcover

Laurence Coupe offers students a comprehensive overview of the development of myth, showing how mythic themes, structures and symbols persist in literature and entertainment today. This introductory volume:

• illustrates the relation between myth, culture and literature with discussions of poetry, fiction, film and popular song
• explores uses made of the term ‘myth’ within the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, cultural studies, feminism, Marxism and psychoanalysis
• discusses the association between modernism, postmodernism, myth and history
• familiarizes the reader with themes such as the dying god, the quest for the Grail, the relation between ‘chaos’ and ‘cosmos’, and the vision of the end of time
• demonstrates the growing importance of the green dimension of myth.

Fully updated and revised in this new edition, Myth is both a concise introduction and a useful tool to students first approaching the topic, while also a valuable contribution to the study of myth.

Laurence Coupe is Senior Lecturer in English at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is the author of Kenneth Burke on Myth, Marina Warner and Beat Sound, Beat Vision, and he is the editor of The Green Studies Reader. For further information on this author please see www.laurencecoupe.me.uk