Fables Of Identity: Studies In Poetic Mythology

This author's idea that poetry and other literature originate from, and continue to perpetuate, mythology, is a stimulating one, albeit not original. Thoreau has the same idea in his essay "Walking," which ties mythology in with his idea of wildness as a source of vitality, "the preservation of the world." For Thoreau, wildness with the source of mythology. This author sees mythology more as a cultural artifact, which means it only begins with classical literature, which leaves out any information about how mythology evolved in "primitive cultures." And he develops it badly in a haphazard collection of essays about authors he likes, jumping from Spenser to Shakespeare to Milton to Yeats, Emily Dickinson, and Wallace Stevens. Only the first two essays on the mythology-literature complex in particular have much general significance. His treatment of Shakespeare is particularly confused and dated.