Reading myth
Interpreting Myth
How later ages read the old stories as allegory and symbol
Every age reads the myths for its own purposes. Renaissance thinkers found hidden philosophy in them, Baroque patrons used them to flatter, and the Symbolists of the 1800s turned them into private dreams.
- A myth can carry moral, political or spiritual meaning beyond its plot.
- The same story can be told very differently: compare the two versions of Oedipus.
- Many meanings are still argued, which is part of the pleasure.
- Allegory
- A picture or story in which figures stand for ideas.
- Symbolism
- A late-19th-century movement that used myth and dream to suggest inner states rather than describe the world.
Works in this part
Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain