Karen Armstrong’s new book, A short history of myth looks at the alienation of modern society from mythology. In the context of the Parthenon (& many other monuments around the world) this is a very interesting subject. When it was built, it was a building that existed within a cultural framework of myths, stories that everyone knew & that not only related to the building but the reason for the building’s being. When we look at it now, we tend to see it as a grand architectural edifice that has lost much of its cultural context, or as a historical curiousity – a window to a past civilisation. Modern society has diverged from myths, ostensibly due to science, although as this article points out there was already an intricate understanding of science at the time monuments such as the Acropolis were created.
If people still believed in the Parthenon in the same way as they once did, would people see Lord Elgin’s denuding of the building in the same way? Do we now tend towards valuations of these monuments only for their artistic merit, or through their provenance? They have for many people lost their context & become something that could be displayed anywhere or that is appropriate to any part of the world.
From:
Prospect
The mythless society
November 2005 | 116
Science has not fulfilled its promise, and new fiction provides no more solace than reality television. We desperately need myth again. Can Canongate’s new publishing venture provide it?
Jonathon Keats
A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong : (Canongate, £12)
Weight by Jeanette Winterson : (Canongate, £12)
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood : (Canongate, £12)
Who but a madman would launch a series of 100 book-length myths, as reimagined by contemporary authors, publicly committing his company to publishing several highbrow titles per season through the year 2038? The madness of Canongate publisher Jamie Byng, instigator of this epic project—simultaneously debuting in 24 countries this month—is an issue perhaps best addressed by psychologists. What the cultural critic might consider, on the other hand, is whether our society is, likewise, cracked.
This is a serious question, and a relevant one. As Karen Armstrong notes in A Short History of Myth, her smart general introduction to the series, the purpose of myth historically has been “primarily therapeutic.” Since Palaeolithic times, myths have been told, in countless forms, to help people understand the world and to guide them through life. Each society, in every era, has revisited fundamental storylines—from the labours of Heracles to the temptations of Christ—not to provide general amusement, but to serve a specific need. Since the Enlightenment, and especially in this past century, that need has ostensibly been eradicated, our anxieties addressed by science, eliminated by technology. And the mechanism of myth, our facility for make-believe, has been channelled into fiction, some literary, most entertainment: innocuous stuff easily sidelined by fact artfully arranged on page or screen.
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