Myth Theorized - Robert A. Segal
Are There Modern Myths for Eliade?
Myth Theorized - Robert A. Segal
Robert A. Segal [+]
University of Aberdeen
Description
In chapter seven I ask whether Eliade’s theory actually allows for modern myths, even in light of Eliade’s fundamental claim that moderns, just like all other humans, have and must have myth. I maintain that by his own criteria, modern myths fail to qualify as myths. They take place in the present or the future as often as in the past. If myths do take place in the past, reading or enacting them does not quite carry one back to the time of the myth. The characters in modern myths are humans rather than gods. To be present at the time and place of a modern myth is not to experience divinity. The characters are not usually models to be emulated. They do not always or even often establish a custom, a law, or an institution that continues to exist. Antithetically to Eliade stand Tylor and Frazer, for whom there are no modern myths. For them, modern myths” would be a contradiction in terms. Also contrary to Eliade stand Jung and Campbell, both of whom allow for wholly secular myths and so who do not, like Eliade, seek religiosity in modern myths.