If you find the following material interesting, then you might want to explore my work:

#We live by myths …

The word ‘myth’ is often used to mean ‘false idea’ (as in ‘the myth of the free individual’); but it is more accurately defined as a narrative form of understanding that proves indispensable to a community.

We need stories that help us understand our collective identity. In my book Myth  (2nd edition, Routledge, 2009), I see the essential types of story as answering certain key questions:

1.Where we come from: creation myth

2.How we survive: fertility myth

3.What we value in humanity: hero myth.

4.Where we need to go, and how to get there: deliverance myth.*

[*This is particularly associated with Judaeo-Christian mythology and its secular variations (eg, Marxism).]

 

#I interpret myth by way of what I call ‘radical typology’…

Myths never die: they are constantly being re-read and re-written.

The original myth offers what we might call the promise, with later versions providing  their  provisional fulfilment. That in turn becomes the source of further promise, further fulfilment. The principle involved is what I call ‘radical typology’: see pages 98-108 of my Myth (2nd edition, Routledge, 2009).

The last century or so has been especially rich in myth. One thinks, obviously, of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. But we should not overlook the mythic structure which underlies other modern works of imagination, from T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, from James Joyce’s Ulysses to  Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.

 

#We need to realise the importance of thinking in a way that is thoroughly ‘green’…

We have to consider seriously the relationship between human culture and non-human nature. Thus interest in ecology overlaps with interest in mythology: we need to re-imagine the Earth, and so recover the sense of its sacredness.

Religion has an important role to play in the collective imagination. Giving up literal belief in God – or, more dramatically, deciding that ‘God is dead’ – does not mean that we can live without religious narratives. Again, this brings us back to mythology, and the primacy of mythos (‘story’). It also brings us back to ecology, and the archaic sense of the sacredness of oikos (the Earth as our ‘home’).

For me, the writers who realised the need for a simultaneous revaluation of the spiritual tradition and celebration of the natural world were those of ‘the Beat generation’. In short, they articulated what we might call a ‘religion of the Earth’. I celebrate Kerouac, Ginsberg, Snyder & co in my book, Beat Sound, Beat Vision. 

 

#When exploring myth, it is necessary to investigate popular culture – particularly film and music – in order to recognise the sheer scope of the mythic imagination ….

Thus in my Myth book I take Coppola’s Apocalypse Now as my starting point, and then go on to celebrate the music of The Doors and in particular the lyrics of Jim Morrison.

Again, in Beat Sound, Beat Vision I demonstrate the radical influence of the Beat writers on popular song: in particular, by way of their rethinking of religious myth. I explore at length the lyrics of Bob Dylan and of The Beatles in particular, but I also cover those of Leonard Cohen, Nick Drake, Van Morrison, the Incredible String Band and others.

 

#A writer who realised the link between mythology and ecology before most people had even started using the latter word was Kenneth Burke …

His thought is very wide-ranging and complex, but it is always expressed in a striking way which leaves a lasting impression. One of his most famous statements is his definition of the human being, which might give some sense of what he is about:

the symbol-using (symbol-making, symbol-misusing) animal

inventor of the negative (or moralized by the negative)

separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making

goaded by the spirit of hierarchy (or moved by the sense of order)

and rotten with perfection.

Read my book, Kenneth Burke: From Myth to Ecology, and this will all become clear … 

 

#There is another important writer who has influenced my work …

I don’t know where I’d be without the influence and inspiration of Marina Warner, whose work is a model of creative re-interpretation, both as theorist and as novelist. She has demonstrated the persistence of myth – the way it is constantly being reinvigorated and reinterpreted in contemporary culture.  It was inevitable that I would  write the Marina Warner  volume in the ‘Writers and their Work’ series (Northcote Press).

Note: Details of all my books are provided on this website.