On My Interest in Mythology
02.25.09
I read the stories about Hercules and Theseus in grade school. In high school I read about the Trojan War in English class and learned about classical history in World Civ. and Latin class. I read comic books whenever I went to the barbershop, and my favorites were Superman, Green Lantern, and Thor. By 8th grade I was reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I read many other science fiction and fantasy writers, some of whom incorporated mythology into their stories.
I went to college with the intention of returning to PA and working at a home mission there modeled after Youth for Christ. That organization, Teen Encounter, had had a major impact on my life, and I wanted to give something back. Unfortunately, the organization changed its focus and opened a summer camp in mid-state PA. I still continued to study theology, but I began to have questions that I couldn’t find answers to, and that I often felt I could not ask in the conservative environment where I attended school and church. So I bracketed my questions as unanswerable and tried not to think too much about the spiritual issues that troubled me.
A year ago, the teacher who taught the mythology classes retired.1 Because of my background in biblical studies and my skills at online learning, I was offered the classes. I thought, then, that I knew a great deal about mythology, but it didn’t take me long to realize I knew very little.
I began reading works by Joseph Campbell and Mircea Eliade. I read Bettlehiem and Raglan and others, and I continue to read these and other writers as well as reading primary sources in the myths themselves.
Mythology appeals to me because of its roots in multidisciplinary levels of understanding. I liked literary criticism in grad school, and many critical approaches to mythology parallel the studies I did in literary criticism. I’m also drawn to archetypal approaches to literature. I had read Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism while in grad school, and his approach appealed to me even though I was becoming more adept at applying a variety of critical approaches to my reading and understanding of literature. I am still at the novice stage in that endeavor, but mythology gives me a new opportunity to hone those skills and also to engage in discussions with students on those topics.
Mythology offers me a forum for discussions that ranges across several fields of study of interest to me: sociology, psychology, science, literature, literary criticism, philosophy, and others. It stimulates me to make more connections between these disciplines and also engage students in the same dialogue. I’ve also found that my study of mythology is leading me to re-evaluate and re-formulate those questions I have about the traditional Christian view I had been taught, and I began to see the possibility of answers and resolutions in the critics I was reading.
In addition, mythology permeates our culture. It can be seen in fantasy and science fiction. It appears in mainstream shows like Joan of Arcadia or movies like Adventures in Babysitting and Mannequin. And mythological thinking and mythological ways of viewing the world continue to have a major impact on how we see ourselves and how we define the world. For instance, much of the rhetoric applied to the current Iraq war is expressed in mythological terms.
As I learn more about mythology, I become increasing interested in learning even more, and it is my hope that my students find mythology relevant to their lives, and that it opens up an expanded awareness of the world in which they “live, and move, and have their being.”
[This article was originally posted on my MySpace blog, Sunday, October 2, 2005.]
1 Linda Reaves, retired Associate Professor of English and Humanities, and the instructor of the mythology classes before me, passed away early February 2009. She is missed and remembered by all of us. Selected works by Eudora Welty as well as several Newberry Award books are being placed in the Augusta R. Kolwyck Library at Chattanooga State as a memorial for her service to students and the college.
© Bill Stifler, 2005
Tags: hero, Joseph Campbell, Linda Reaves, Mircea Eliade, myth, mythology, Teen Encounter