NOTES ON MYTH
339
spensable substructure" of poetry, an opinion which I take it he shares
with T. S. Eliot. Joseph Campbell, in his appendix to the recent edi–
tion of
Grimm's Fairy Tales,
supposes that myth is a system of meta–
physics: it is a "revelation of transcendental mysteries;" it is "sym–
bolic of the spiritual norm for Man the Microcosm." These are ideas
which at least have the advantage of being as old as the Stoics, or
older. Finally, the surrealist Jacques B. Brunius, writing in last Spring's
PARTISAN REVIEW, tells us that "the creation of a modern myth coin–
cides with the problem of knowledge," and he contrasts the modern
myth which he hopes to see created with the "myths" of "Egypto–
Graeco-Roman paganism", Christianity and contemporary Statism.
I do not propose to criticize these writers separately-they are all
suggestive in varying degrees. But I do feel that one ought to object to
the assumption they all explicitly or implicitly make: Namely,
that
myth is philosophy-that it is a system of metaphysical or symbolic
thought, that it is a theology, a body of dogma, or a world-view, that
it is in direct opposition to science, is indeed the other side of the
scientific coin.
To make these assumptions, or any one of them, is to
make of myth something it has never been; to make them is to com–
mandeer the word "myth" and apply it to something for which there
are more exact, though less fashionable words. To make them is to
burden myth with a task it cannot by itself perform.
If
we persist in
this interpretation we are bound for another huge disappointment:
"myth" will become as empty a word as some of those for which we
now substitute it. Our pretensions will have to be more modest, our
conclusions more tentative if there is to be any pungency in our under–
standing and use of myth.
The fact is that the simplest meaning of the Greek word "myth"
is the right one:
a myth is a story, myth is narrative or poetic litera–
ture.
It
need be no more philosophic than apy other kind of literature.
Myth is therefore
art
and must be studied as such. Myth is a mode
of cognition, a system of thought, a way of life, only as art is. It can
be opposed to science only as art is opposed to science. There is no
question of one defeating the other. They are complementary and ful–
fill different needs. The romantic fear that science may destroy myth
betrays an acquiescence in the misinterpretation of myth which
science sometimes gives us: namely that it is frivolous or delicate
nonsense. There are no eras in recorded history when science has
banished myth: though there
are
eras when human thought in gen–
eral has become superficial. When science is psychologically adequate,
it can be shown to have much in common with myth. The best modern
