The Power of Myth
Nov. 23rd, 2004 10:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushnerBecause of my fantasy writing and my work on Sound & Spirit http://www.wgbh.org/spirit, I am sometimes asked to speak on the use and meaning of myth, ancient and modern.
The question I have come to dread is, "What are our modern myths?" and the variant, "What myths are we creating today?"
I believe strongly that myths and their power come precisely from the fact that no one makes them: they grow out of something that exists already in the psyche of the times, that cannot find expression and support until it is already well established.
So I was very pleased to find this, in a review of the new "Lost Boys" movie, in the Nov. 22, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, by Anthony Lane:
"[I]n Peter Pan, Barrie achieved the rarest alchemy of all, the one that no writer can plan or predict: he invented a myth. The idea of Peter seems to have been flying around forever, a constant of humanity, and all that Barrie had to do was reach up and pluck the boy out of the air."
There ya go. That's the stuff.
The question I have come to dread is, "What are our modern myths?" and the variant, "What myths are we creating today?"
I believe strongly that myths and their power come precisely from the fact that no one makes them: they grow out of something that exists already in the psyche of the times, that cannot find expression and support until it is already well established.
So I was very pleased to find this, in a review of the new "Lost Boys" movie, in the Nov. 22, 2004 issue of the New Yorker, by Anthony Lane:
"[I]n Peter Pan, Barrie achieved the rarest alchemy of all, the one that no writer can plan or predict: he invented a myth. The idea of Peter seems to have been flying around forever, a constant of humanity, and all that Barrie had to do was reach up and pluck the boy out of the air."
There ya go. That's the stuff.