Myth Literature and the Unconscious

<p>At a time when the place and significance of myth in society has come under renewed scrutiny <em>Myth Literature and the Unconscious </em>contributes to shaping the new interdisciplinary field of myth studies. The editors find in psychoanalysis a natural and necessary ally for investigations in myth and myth-informed literature and the arts. At the same time the collection re-values myths and myth-based cultural products as vital aids to the discipline and practice of psychoanalysis. The volume spans a vast geo-cultural range (including ancient Egypt India Japan nineteenth-century France and twentieth-century Germany) and investigates cultural products from the Mahabharata to J. W. Goethe's opus and eighteenth-century Japanese fiction and from William Blake's visionary poetry to contemporary blockbuster television series. It encompasses mythic topics and figures such as Oedipus Orpheus the Scapegoat and the Hero while mobilising Freudian Jungian object relations and Lacanian psychoanalytic approaches.</p>