Document Type
Book
Publication Date
12-16-2006
Abstract
In Northrop Frye and the Phenomenology of Myth, Glen Robert Gill compares Frye's theories about myth to those of three other major twentieth-century mythologists: C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Mircea Eliade. Gill explores the theories of these respective thinkers as they relate to Frye's discussions of the phenomenological nature of myth, as well as its religious, literary, and psychological significance.
Gill substantiates Frye's work as both more radical and more tenable than that of his three contemporaries. Eliade's writings are shown to have a metaphysical basis that abrogates an understanding of myth as truly phenomenological, while Jung's theory of the collective unconscious emerges as similarly problematic. Likewise, Gill argues, Campbell's work, while incorporating some phenomenological progressions, settles on a questionable metaphysical foundation. Gill shows how, in contrast to these other mythologists, Frye's theory of myth – first articulated in Fearful Symmetry (1947) and culminating in Words with Power (1990) – is genuinely phenomenological.
With excursions into fields such as literary theory, depth psychology, theology, and anthropology, Northrop Frye and the Phenomenology of Myth is essential to the understanding of Frye's important mythological work.
DOI
10.3138/9781442627604
Book Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Journal ISSN / Book ISBN
0802091164
Montclair State University Digital Commons Citation
Gill, Glen Robert, "Northrop Frye and the Phenomenology of Myth" (2006). Department of Classics and General Humanities Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 41.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/classics-gnrl-hmnties-facpubs/41
Included in
Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, Classics Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, Comparative Methodologies and Theories Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Metaphysics Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Philosophy of Language Commons, Philosophy of Mind Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons