This is the first English translation of a pioneering Russian work that traces the development of world literature from its mytho-poetic base, Meletinsky's Poetics of Myth (1976). His argument that myth survives today as a form of thought, that myth emerges more and more frequently in our century's great literature as the rhetorical strategies of realism and objective observation reveal themselves as inadequate to the task of describing the concerns of modern man, is just as provocative today as when the book appeared in Russia over 20 years ago. At that time, the modern approach to the scientific analysis of myth and literature was relatively new, and the amount of scientific literature that exists today is testimony to the ground-breaking character of Meletinsky's work.

Explores myth in the present century

The volume contains a biographical note on the author and the entire preface to the Russian edition. The book itself is divided into three sections on the modern theories of myth such as the French sociological school, the symbolic theories, and structuralism, the classic forms of myth as expressed in folklore, and the use of myth in 20th-century literature with examples from Joyce, Mann, and Kafka among others. Complete access to the information contained is provided by three indexes.

Offers updated terms and explanations

This important work is now brought to the English-speaking world in a lucid translation that has been "de-Sovietized" (the then-obligatory references to Marx and Engels have been removed and some of the author's reluctantly adopted "Soviet" terminology has been modified, for example, "collective" is here "people", "tribe",or "nation", depending on the circumstance). All unusual aspects of Meletinsky's language are explained at length in the foreword.