Poets May Be Delightful Creatures In The

There Can Be No Stronger Proof Of The Impoverishment Of Our Contemporary Culture Than The Popular - Though Profoundly Mistaken - Definition Of Myth As Falsehood.

When One Read's Kierkegaard's Profound Analyses Of Anxiety And Despair Or Nietzsche's Amazingly Acute Insights Into The Dynamics Of Resentment And The Guilt And Hostility Which Accompany Repressed Emotional Powers, One Might Pinch Oneself To Realize That One Is Reading Works Written In The Last Century And Not Some New Contemporary Psychological Analysis.

A Myth Is A Way Of Making Sense In A Senseless World. Myths Are Narrative Patterns That Give Significance To Our Existence. Whether The Meaning Of Existence Is Only What We Put Into Life By Our Own Individual Fortitude, As Sartre Would Hold, Or Whether There Is A Meaning We Need To Discover, As Kierkegaard Would State, The Result Is The Same: Myths Are Our Way Of Finding This Meaning And Significance.

By The Creative Act, We Are Able To Reach Beyond Our Own Death.

Our Powerful Hunger For Myth Is A Hunger For Community. The Person Without A Myth Is A Person Without A Home...to Be A Member Of One's Community Is To Share In Its Myths.