Myth: A Very Short Introduction

by Robert A. Segal

Paperback, 2004

Status

Available

Call number

201.3

Collection

Publication

Oxford University Press (2004), Edition: 1, 176 pages

Description

This book is not about myths, but about approaches to myth, from all of the major disciplines, including science, religion, philosophy, literature, and psychology. A survey of the past 300 years of theorizing on myth, this book takes into account the work of such prominent thinkers as Albert Camus, Claude Levi Strauss, Roland Barthes, C. G. Jung, and Sigmund Freud. Segal also considers the future study of myth, and the possible function of myth in the world as the adult equivalent of play.

User reviews

LibraryThing member aulsmith
I found this short introduction to the major players in the study of mythology very helpful. I have dived into books by Frazer, Campbell, Bly, Eliade, and Malinowski at various times, only to find myself extremely confused and wondering what myth is. I am not the only one confused. These major
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figures, while falling into schools, have major disagreements with each other, not to mention huge lacunae in their own thinking which makes them confusing for someone like myself, who has a large acquaintance with the myths themselves, and is looking for big ideas to tie them together. Looks like I'll have to wait. Even Segal's own views, which he presents in the last chapter, while interesting, fails to deal with the question that is central to me, "Why these stories? Why have they been useful to us for thousands of years?"
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LibraryThing member lbowman
Not a book to be read out of casual interest. That is to say, eye-crossingly dull. Do not be misled by its slender size; takes forever to get through.
LibraryThing member kaulsu
This is the first "Very Short Introduction" that I have found unsatisfying. It surveys a variety of 19th, 20th, and 21st c. mythologists rather than more simply _introducing_ the subject. As a survey of a field one is already familiar with, it would surely be a help, but as is seems to be too
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ambitious in scope to really deal with such a large number of mythologists: 33.

E.B. Tylor; J.G. Frazer; Lucien Lévy-Bruhl; Bronislaw Malinowski; Claude Lévy-Strauss; Robin Horton; Karl Popper; Paul Radin; Ernst Cassirer; Henry and H.A. Frankfort; Rudolf Bultmann; Hans Jonas; Albert Camus; Mircea Eliade [Alf Hiltebeitel's prof at Univ. of Chicago]; Wm Robertson Smith; Jane Harrison; S.H. Hooke; René Girard; Walter Burkert; Lord Raglan; Sigmund Freud; Otto Rank; Jacob Arlow; Bruno Bettelheim; Alan Dundes; C.G. Jung; Joseph Campbell; Vladimir Propp; Georges Dumézil; Louis Germet; Marcel Detienne; and D.W. Winnicott.

Indexed
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Subjects

Language

Original language

English

Original publication date

2004

Physical description

6.8 x 4.3 inches

ISBN

9780192803474

Local notes

SS - Part of the "Very Short Introductions' series from Oxford University Press.

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