Mitokrytyka w badaniach literackich
Myth-criticism in Literary Studies

Author(s): Marzena Karwowska
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Polish Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: myth-criticism; myth; anthropological structures of the imaginary; Gilbert Durand; Gaston Bachelard
Summary/Abstract: The past decades have seen the emergence of a new poetics of literary work in global mythocritical research, accompanied by a unique terminology and proposing new methodological tools. In Poland, however, it still operates on the fringes, in a discourse dominated by dynamically shifting methodological trends. Myth-criticism in Literary Studies presents the specific methodology of myth-criticism (sometimes referred to as mythodology) as introduced to the humanities canon by its pioneer Gilbert Durand, and further developed to this day by his students and successors. It not only demonstrates the potential of myth-criticism as a method of textual hermeneutics in – primarily Polish – literary studies, but also attempts to systematically organise the lexicon of myth-criticism, defining the fundamental theoretical terms in the methodological toolkit of contemporary myth-criticism. It comprises two complementary parts. The first, titled “Myth-criticism: Theoretical Foundations and Aporetics,” attempts to organise sytematically the key theoretical-literary issues concerning myth-criticism as a specific hermeneutic method of interpreting literary works. It takes into account canonical founding texts and the latest global research developments in the field. The second part, titled “The Cultural Re-immersion of Myth,” explores the alienation and textualization of myth, and the artistic ways in which myth is reborn as an anthropological structure of imagination in twentieth-century literature. The following aspects are presented: the literary distortion of myth, the phenomenon of mythopoeists, and the reconstitution of myths in specific literary works rooted in centuries-old culture and their incorporation into modern narrative frameworks.

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