XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien, alt.books.cs-lewis
From: hayesmstw@hotmail.com
On Wed, 20 Dec 2006 00:11:25 +0200, Morgil wrote:
>Jamie Andrews; real address @ bottom of message wrote:
>
>> There are some passages here and there in Tolkien and Lewis
>> about the Bible being a myth, and the phrase "lies breathed
>> through silver", and the idea of the Christian story being a
>> "true myth". I must confess I never really grasped any of that
>> very well, in part because some of it appears as fragments of
>> conversations incompletely reported. But the intent seems to be
>> that the Bible contains deep, fundamental truths despite not
>> being literally "true" in a scientific sense.
>
>It might be interesting to discuss if the same
>could be said about The Da Vinci Code. :-)
The nature of myth.
Source: Berdyaev 1948:70.
Myth is a reality immeasurably greater than concept. It is
high time that we stopped identifying myth with invention,
with the illusions of primitive mentality, and with anything,
in fact, which is essentially opposed to reality... The
creation of myths among peoples denotes a real spiritual life,
more real indeed than that of abstract concepts and rational
thought. Myth is always concrete and expresses life better
than abstract thought can do; its nature is bound up with that
of symbol. Myth is the concrete recital of events and original
phenomena of the spiritual life symbolized in the natural
world, which has engraved itself on the language memory and
creative energy of the people... it brings two worlds together
symbolically.
The purpose of literature.
Source: Garner 1997:27.
"It is a paradox: yet one so important that I must restate
it. The job of a storyteller is to speak the truth; but what
we feel most deeply cannot be spoken in words. At this level
only images connect. And so story become symbol, and symbol is
myth.
I am using the word 'myth' not as meaning 'fiction' or
'unhistorical', but as a complex story that, for various
reasons, human beings see as demonstrations of the inner cause
of the universe and of human life. Myth is quite different
from philosophy in the sense of abstract concepts. The form of
myth is concrete always, yet it holds those qualities that
demand of the human mind that it recognise a revelation of the
function behind the world. Revelation is not always the same
as total understanding. It can be a request such as Oliver
Cromwell offered to the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotloand in 1650: 'I bessech you, in the bowels of Christ,
think it possible that you may be mistaken.' Myth is not an
invitation to be cocky as to what the Holy Ghost may have had
in mind. 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the Lord.' It is one of the main
errors of historical and rational analysis to suppose that the
'original form' of a myth can be separated from its miraculous
elements. 'Wonder is only the first glimpse of the start of
philosophy,' says Plato. Aristotle is more explicit, 'The
lover of myths, which are a compound of wonders, is, by his
being in that very state, a lover of wisdom.. Myth
encapsulates the nearest approach to absolute truth that words
can speak. The wall and the rune. If the young man on a tree
stump is a Parzival, 'to get aback of' is the Quest of the
Grail."
--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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