Myth and Literature in the American Renaissance

Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1978. Hardcover. VG- (Ex-library with stamps and labels on spine, inside front and rear covers, ffep and block. Pages are otherwise clean and clear. Binding tight.). Brown cloth boards with gilt spine lettering; off-white dj with black lettering, mylar cover; vii, 309 pp. There are perhaps as many definitions of myth as of romanticism, but a renewed interest in myth as "authentic tidings of invisible things" is one of the most commonly remarked characteristics of early nineteenth-century literature. American writers from Emerson to Melville were very well read in myth and in mythic theory and were highly conscious of myth as a subject of special interest to the age. Richardson shows how our major writers consciously understood and used myth. - Jacket flap. Contents: ch. 1. The two traditions -- ch. 2. Parker and Alcott: The higher criticism: Theodore parker and the mythical views of the Bible ; The affirmation of myth: Bronson Alcott and the orphic mode -- ch. 3. Emerson: The quality of mythic experience ; The verdict of reason ; Myth and history ; Metamorphosis, metaphor for organic process ; The heroic life and the uses of myth -- ch. 4. Thoreau: "To link my facts to fable" ; The lesson of Indic myth ; Nordic myth and the idea of the heroic ; Greek myth: Prometheus on Ktaadn ; "Walking": the call for myth ; Myth in Walden -- ch. 5. Whitman: The insufficiency of myth ; Myth, history, and Egypt ; From old myth to new religion: nationalism and prophecy -- ch. 6. Hawthorne: Hawthorne, Schlegel, and the modern uses of myth ; Greek myths for children: from classic to Gothic ; Transformations and metamorphoses -- ch. 7. Melville: Melville's reading in myth ; Psyche in Polynesia ; Mythic investiture in Moby-Dick ; Epilogue: Melville after Moby-Dick -- Appendix: From Alcott's Psyche an Evangele, ch. 1.