THE MYTH AND THE POWERHOUSE
647
time the historical process is marked far more by loss and extremity
than growth and mastery, and this fact is interpreted by the spokes–
men of traditionalism as completely justifying their position. The
mythic principle appeals to them because of its fixity and profoundly
conservative implications. But the hope of stability it offers is illusory.
To look to myth for deliverance from history is altogether futile.
In literature the withdrawal from historical experience and cre–
ativeness can only mean stagnation. For the creative artist to deny
time in the name of the timeless and immemorial is to misconceive
his task. He will never discover a shortcut to transcendence. True, in
the imaginative act the artist does indeed challenge time, but in order
to win he must also be able to meet
its
challenge; and his triumph
over it is like that blessing which Jacob exacted from the angel only
after grappling with him till the break of day.
In criticism the reaction against history is shown in the search
for some sort of mythic model, so to speak, to which the literary
work under scrutiny can be made to conform. The critics captivated
by this procedure ,are inclined to take for granted that to identify a
mythic pattern in a novel or poem is tantamount to disclosing its
merit-an assumption patently false, for the very same pattern is
easily discoverable in works entirely without merit. Implicit here is
the notion that the sheer timelessness of the pattern is as such a guar–
anty of value. What is not grasped, however, is that the timeless is
in itself nothing more than a pledge waiting for time to redeem it,
or, to vary the figure, a barren form that only time can make fecund.
And Blake said it when he wrote in his "Proverbs of Hell" that
"eternity is
in
love with the productions of time."
1 Jacques Maritain:
Creative Intuition
in
Art and Poetry
(New York
1'953), p. 180ff.
2 Ernst Cassirer:
The Myth 01 the State
(New Haven 1946), p. 5.
3 A. N. Whitehead:
An Anthology
selected
by
F. S. C. Northrop and
Mason Cross (New York 1953), p. 475.
4 S. M. Hooke: in
Myth and Ritual
(London 1949), p. 6.
5 Ernst Cassirer:
Op.
cit.
p. 42.
6 Susanne M. Langer:
Philosophy
in
a New Key
(New York 1948),
p.
160ft.
7 Susanne M. Langer:
Feeling and Form
(New York 1953), p. 274ff.
8 Ernst Cassirer:
Myth and Language,
p.
97ff.
9 Ernst Cassirer:
The Myth of the State,
p. 298.
