Mythopoeic literature
Encyclopedia
Mythopoeia is a narrative genre
in modern literature
and film
where a fictional mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction. This meaning of the word mythopoeia follows its use by J. R. R. Tolkien
in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes
and archetypes into fiction.
, William Blake
, H. P. Lovecraft
, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake
and George MacDonald
. While many literary works carry mythic themes
, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoeia. It is invented mythology
that, rather than arising out of centuries of oral tradition, are penned over a short period of time by a single author or small group of collaborators.
As distinguished from fantasy world
s or fictional universe
s aimed at the evocation of detailed worlds with well-ordered histories, geographies, and laws of nature, mythopoeia aims at imitating and including real-world mythology, specifically created to bring mythology to modern readers, and/or to add credibility and literary depth to fictional worlds in fantasy
or science fiction
books and movies.
Mythopoeia are almost invariably created entirely by an individual, like the world of Middle-earth
.
, "myth-making". In early uses, it referred to the making of myths in ancient times. It was adopted and used by Tolkien as a title of one of his poems, written about 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf
. The poem popularized the word mythopoeia as a literary and artistic endeavor and genre.
or science fiction
but fill a niche for mythology in the modern world, according to Joseph Campbell
, a famous student of world mythology. Campbell spoke of a Nietzschean world which has today outlived much of the mythology of the past. He claimed that new myths must be created, but he believed that present culture is changing too rapidly for society to be completely described by any such mythological framework until a later age. He did, however, use Star Wars
as an example of the creation of such fantasy worlds by which civilization will one day describe itself. Without relevant mythology, Campbell claimed, society cannot function well.
argues that "any novel cannot meet the cultural criteria of myth. A work of art, or artifice, cannot be said to be the narrative of a culture’s sacred tradition...(it is) at most, artificial myth."
Students of myth-making and comparative religion
have also been accused of weaving their own myths rather than honestly interpreting the ones they purport to study, including Claude Lévi-Strauss
, Carl Jung
, Joseph Campbell
, Georges Dumézil
, Jane Ellen Harrison
, James Frazer
and Barbara G. Walker.
, written in Greek Southern Italy
in the 6th century BC. Pherecydes transformed the Greek pantheon beyond recognition, with Zas ("he who lives") rather than Zeus as the king of the gods, and Chronos ("time") rather than Kronos as Zas's father. Pherecydes's book was a key turning-point in the Greek movement towards scientific and philosophical thought.
with C. S. Lewis
and Hugo Dyson
in order to explain and defend creative myth-making. The discussion was recorded in the book The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter
.
The poem refers to the creative human author as "the little maker" wielding his "own small golden sceptre" ruling his subcreation (understood as genuine creation within God
's primary creation).
and The Silmarillion
. J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is perhaps the best-known of contemporary invented mythology. In his fictional works, Tolkien invented not only origin myth
s, creation myths and an epic poetry
cycle, but also fictive linguistics
, geology
and geography
.
Tolkien's idea of mythopoeia was soon followed by key authors in the Inklings
, an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford
, England
, between the 1930s and the 1960s. This included his close friend C. S. Lewis.
, taking the position that myths were "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'". However Lewis later began to speak of Christianity as the one "true myth". Lewis wrote, "The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened."http://web.archive.org/web/20091026222931/http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/3505/LewisJoy.html Subsequently, his Chronicles of Narnia is regarded as mythopoeia, with storylines referencing that Christian mythology, namely the narrative of a great king
who is sacrificed to save his people and is resurrected.
Lewis' mythopoeic intent is often confused with allegory, where the characters and world of Narnia would stand in direct equivalence with concepts and events from Christian theology and history, but Lewis repeatedly emphasized that an allegorical reading misses the point (the mythopoeia) of the Narnia stories.
C. S. Lewis
also created a mythopoeia in his neo-medieval representation of extra-planetary travel and planetary "bodies" in the Cosmic or Space Trilogy
.
's "prophetic works" (e.g. Vala, or The Four Zoas
) contain a rich panoply
of original gods, such as Urizen
, Orc, Los
, Albion
, Rintrah
, Ahania
and Enitharmon
. Blake was an important influence on Aleister Crowley
's Thelemic
writings, whose dazzling pantheon of invented deities and radically re-cast figures from Egyptian mythology
and the Book of Revelation
constitute an invented mythology of their own.
of H. P. Lovecraft
was likewise taken up by numerous collaborators and admirers.
; the latter two C. S. Lewis praised for their "mythopoeic" gifts.
The repeated motifs of Jorge Luis Borges
's fictional works (mirror
s, labyrinths
, tiger
s, etc.) tantalizingly hint at a deeper underlying mythos and yet stealthily hold back from any overt presentation of it.
The pulp
works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
and Robert E. Howard
contain imagined worlds vast enough to be universes in themselves, as does the science fiction
of Frank Herbert
, E. E. "Doc" Smith
and Michael Moorcock
.
T. S. Eliot
's The Waste Land
was a deliberate attempt to model a 20th-century mythology patterned after the birth-rebirth motif described by Frazer.
Neil Gaiman
's novels deal with various mythologies, and combines them into a single, cohesive world.
Stephen King
's novels and short stories form an intricate and highly developed mythos, drawing in part on the Lovecraftian, with characters such as the demonic Crimson King
and Randall Flag appearing in several (otherwise unrelated) works, as well as a supernatural force known only as "The White". The Dark Tower
series serves as a linchpin for this mythos, connecting with practically all of King's various storylines in one way or another.
Star Maker
by Olaf Stapledon
is a rare attempt at a cohesive science fiction mythos.
, stated film is another "mythmaking" art, stating: "Film and literature matter as much as they do because they are versions of mythmaking." He also thinks film is a perfect vehicle for mythmaking: "FILM...strives toward the fulfillment of its own projected reality in an ideally associative, personal world." In a broad analysis, McConnell associate the American western movies and romance movies to the Arthurian mythology, adventure and action movies to the "epic world
" mythologies of founding societies, and many romance movies where the hero is allegorically playing role of a knight, to "quest" mythologies like Sir Gawain and the Quest for the Holy Grail
.
speaks of the cinematic storyline of Star Wars
as an example of modern myth-making. He claims: "With Star Wars I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs." The idea of Star Wars as "mythological" has been met with mixed reviews by some reviewers and critics: Frank McConnell says "it has passed, quicker than anyone could have imagined, from the status of film to that of legitimate and deeply embedded popular mythology." John Lyden, the Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Dana College, argues that Star Wars does indeed reproduce religious and mythical themes: specifically, he argues that the work is apocalyptic in concept and scope. The Decent Film Guides Steven D. Greydanus agrees, calling Star Wars a "work of epic mythopoeia". In fact, Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia:
, Tolkien, and the samurai/wuxia epics of the East..."
However Lucas's claims about the "mythical" aspects of Star Wars have also been criticized by other film critics (e.g. as "pseudo-mythic Joseph Campbell
hogwash").
George Lucas
recounts that he was consciously influenced by Joseph Campbell's theories as he made the Star Wars
movies.
's operas were a deliberate attempt to create a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), transforming the legends of the Teutonic past nearly out of recognition into a new monument to the Romantic
project.
In popular music, George Clinton
's Parliament
-Funkadelic
collective produced numerous concept album
s which tied together in what is referred to as P-Funk mythology
.
The musical collective
NewVillager constructed a mythology from Joseph Campell's Monomyth
of which all their music, art, and videos serve to express.
The band Rhapsody Of Fire
have created and tell the stories of a full-developed fantasy world with tales of epic wars between good and evil, although many elements are taken directly from Tolkien and other authors.
Blind Guardian
, the European Power Metal Band, often evoke images from The Lord of the Rings.
, a neopagan church.
s have been called the twentieth century's version of the epic
. In
The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints, Thomas Roberts observes that:
Superman, for example, sent from the "heavens" by his father to save humanity, is a messiah-type of character in the Biblical
tradition. Furthermore, along with the rest of DC Comic's Justice League of America, Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower
in the skies; just like the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus
.
"Jack Kirby's Fourth World
" series, with the cosmic struggle between Darkseid
's Apokolips
and the gods of New Genesis
and Mister Miracle
and Orion as messiah
-figures is another good example. Neil Gaiman
's Sandman series created a mythology around the Endless
, a family of god-like embodiments of natural forces like death
and dream
ing.
Role-playing game
s often include invented mythologies for their players to interact with. Examples include the Forgotten Realms
setting of Dungeons & Dragons
, the world of White Wolf
's Exalted
, and the Elder Scrolls which boasts a mythology which could be argued is as detailed as Tolkien's. Their computer counterparts, computer role-playing games, sometimes have elaborate fictional universes that continue to be explored over many sequels, such as the best selling Final Fantasy X
which along with its sequel Final Fantasy X-2
sold 10 million copies and boasts a legion of enthusiasts of its Fictional Universe
.
In the TV series Battlestar Galactica
, an invented mythology is an important foundation of the plot. A vast majority of the humans, or Colonials, are polytheists
and believe in the gods of Kobol
, whose names and attributes are very similar to those of the Classical gods of Greece
and Rome
, such as Zeus
, Athena
, Apollo
, Ares
or Hera
. One of the religious books of the Colonial canon was written by or named for the prophet Pythia. The Book of Pythia tells the story of the fall of the planet Kobol (where according to legend Humanity had first arisen), the exodus of the Twelve Tribes to their new planets (the Colonies), and the journey of a Thirteenth Tribe to a planet called Earth
. The Cylons
, a robot
race, believe in one sole god
and it has been suggested that the origins of their religion may be in the Temple of Five, a sacred place which appears in Pythia's prophecy and was found by the Colonial and Cylon fleets.
exists to promote mythopoeic literature, partly by way of the Mythopoeic Awards
.
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
in modern literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
where a fictional mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction. This meaning of the word mythopoeia follows its use by J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
in the 1930s. The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes
Mytheme
In the study of mythology, a mytheme is the essential kernel of a myth—an irreducible, unchanging element, a minimal unit that is always found shared with other, related mythemes and reassembled in various ways—"bundled" was Claude Lévi-Strauss's image— or linked in more...
and archetypes into fiction.
Introduction and definition
Mythopoeia is also the act of making (creating) mythologies. Notable mythopoeic authors include Tolkien, C. S. LewisC. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
, William Blake
William Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
, H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, Lord Dunsany, Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Peake
Mervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R...
and George MacDonald
George MacDonald
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. It was C.S...
. While many literary works carry mythic themes
Theme (literature)
A theme is a broad, message, or moral of a story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and are almost always implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character,...
, only a few approach the dense self-referentiality and purpose of mythopoeia. It is invented mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
that, rather than arising out of centuries of oral tradition, are penned over a short period of time by a single author or small group of collaborators.
As distinguished from fantasy world
Fantasy world
A fantasy world is a fictional universe used in fantasy novels and games. Typical worlds involve magic or magical abilities and often, but not always, either a medieval or futuristic theme...
s or fictional universe
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
s aimed at the evocation of detailed worlds with well-ordered histories, geographies, and laws of nature, mythopoeia aims at imitating and including real-world mythology, specifically created to bring mythology to modern readers, and/or to add credibility and literary depth to fictional worlds in fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
or science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
books and movies.
Mythopoeia are almost invariably created entirely by an individual, like the world of Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
.
Etymology
The term mythopoeia is from GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, "myth-making". In early uses, it referred to the making of myths in ancient times. It was adopted and used by Tolkien as a title of one of his poems, written about 1931 and published in Tree and Leaf
Tree and Leaf
Tree and Leaf is a small book published in 1964, containing two works by J. R. R. Tolkien:* a revised version of an essay called "On Fairy-Stories"...
. The poem popularized the word mythopoeia as a literary and artistic endeavor and genre.
The place in society
Works of mythopoeia are often categorized as fantasyFantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
or science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
but fill a niche for mythology in the modern world, according to Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, a famous student of world mythology. Campbell spoke of a Nietzschean world which has today outlived much of the mythology of the past. He claimed that new myths must be created, but he believed that present culture is changing too rapidly for society to be completely described by any such mythological framework until a later age. He did, however, use Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
as an example of the creation of such fantasy worlds by which civilization will one day describe itself. Without relevant mythology, Campbell claimed, society cannot function well.
Critics of the genre
Mythopoeia is sometimes called artificial mythology, which emphasizes that it did not evolve naturally and is an artifice comparable with artificial language, so should not be taken seriously as mythology. For example the noted folklorist Alan DundesAlan Dundes
Alan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
argues that "any novel cannot meet the cultural criteria of myth. A work of art, or artifice, cannot be said to be the narrative of a culture’s sacred tradition...(it is) at most, artificial myth."
Students of myth-making and comparative religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
have also been accused of weaving their own myths rather than honestly interpreting the ones they purport to study, including Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss
Claude Lévi-Strauss was a French anthropologist and ethnologist, and has been called, along with James George Frazer, the "father of modern anthropology"....
, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, Georges Dumézil
Georges Dumézil
Georges Dumézil was a French comparative philologist best known for his analysis of sovereignty and power in Proto-Indo-European religion and society...
, Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison
Jane Ellen Harrison was a British classical scholar, linguist and feminist. Harrison is one of the founders, with Karl Kerenyi and Walter Burkert, of modern studies in Greek mythology. She applied 19th century archaeological discoveries to the interpretation of Greek religion in ways that have...
, James Frazer
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion...
and Barbara G. Walker.
Antiquity
Perhaps the first attempt to construct mythology was the book of Pherecydes of SyrosPherecydes of Syros
Pherecydes of Syros was a Greek thinker from the island of Syros, of the 6th century BC. Pherecydes authored the Pentemychos or Heptamychos, one of the first attested prose works in Greek literature, which formed an important bridge between mythic and pre-Socratic thought.- Life :Very little is...
, written in Greek Southern Italy
Magna Graecia
Magna Græcia is the name of the coastal areas of Southern Italy on the Tarentine Gulf that were extensively colonized by Greek settlers; particularly the Achaean colonies of Tarentum, Crotone, and Sybaris, but also, more loosely, the cities of Cumae and Neapolis to the north...
in the 6th century BC. Pherecydes transformed the Greek pantheon beyond recognition, with Zas ("he who lives") rather than Zeus as the king of the gods, and Chronos ("time") rather than Kronos as Zas's father. Pherecydes's book was a key turning-point in the Greek movement towards scientific and philosophical thought.
Mythopoeia the poem
Tolkien wrote Mythopoeia (the poem) following a discussion on the night of 19 September 1931 at Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College, Oxford
Magdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...
with C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
and Hugo Dyson
Hugo Dyson
Henry Victor Dyson Dyson , generally known as Hugo Dyson and who signed his writings H. V. D. Dyson, was an English academic and a member of the Inklings literary group. He was a committed Christian, and together with J.R.R. Tolkien, he helped persuade C.S...
in order to explain and defend creative myth-making. The discussion was recorded in the book The Inklings by Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an English biographer, writer, and radio broadcaster.-Biography:...
.
The poem refers to the creative human author as "the little maker" wielding his "own small golden sceptre" ruling his subcreation (understood as genuine creation within God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
's primary creation).
Tolkien and the Inklings
Tolkien's now famous work of mythopoeia includes The Lord of the RingsThe Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
and The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion
The Silmarillion is a collection of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic works, edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, who later became a noted fantasy writer. The Silmarillion, along with J. R. R...
. J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth is perhaps the best-known of contemporary invented mythology. In his fictional works, Tolkien invented not only origin myth
Origin myth
An origin myth is a myth that purports to describe the origin of some feature of the natural or social world. One type of origin myth is the cosmogonic myth, which describes the creation of the world...
s, creation myths and an epic poetry
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
cycle, but also fictive linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, geology
Geology
Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
and geography
Geography
Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
.
Tolkien's idea of mythopoeia was soon followed by key authors in the Inklings
Inklings
The Inklings was an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford, England, for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949. The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction, and encouraged the writing of fantasy...
, an informal literary discussion group associated with the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, between the 1930s and the 1960s. This included his close friend C. S. Lewis.
C. S. Lewis
At the time that Tolkien debated the usefulness of myth and mythopoeia with C. S. Lewis in 1931, Lewis was a theist, and liked but was skeptical of mythologyMythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, taking the position that myths were "lies and therefore worthless, even though 'breathed through silver'". However Lewis later began to speak of Christianity as the one "true myth". Lewis wrote, "The story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened."http://web.archive.org/web/20091026222931/http://www.geocities.com/athens/forum/3505/LewisJoy.html Subsequently, his Chronicles of Narnia is regarded as mythopoeia, with storylines referencing that Christian mythology, namely the narrative of a great king
King
- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...
who is sacrificed to save his people and is resurrected.
Lewis' mythopoeic intent is often confused with allegory, where the characters and world of Narnia would stand in direct equivalence with concepts and events from Christian theology and history, but Lewis repeatedly emphasized that an allegorical reading misses the point (the mythopoeia) of the Narnia stories.
C. S. Lewis
C. S. Lewis
Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...
also created a mythopoeia in his neo-medieval representation of extra-planetary travel and planetary "bodies" in the Cosmic or Space Trilogy
Space Trilogy
The Space Trilogy, Cosmic Trilogy or Ransom Trilogy is a trilogy of science fiction novels by C. S. Lewis, famous for his later series The Chronicles of Narnia. A philologist named Elwin Ransom is the hero of the first two novels and an important character in the third.The books in the trilogy...
.
William Blake
William BlakeWilliam Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
's "prophetic works" (e.g. Vala, or The Four Zoas
Vala, or The Four Zoas
Vala, or The Four Zoas refers to one of the incompleted prophetic books by English poet William Blake, begun in 1797. The titular main characters of the book are The Four Zoas: , who were created by the fall of Albion in Blake's mythology. It consists of nine books, referred to as "nights"...
) contain a rich panoply
William Blake's mythology
The prophetic books of the English poet and artist William Blake contain a rich invented mythology , in which Blake worked to encode his revolutionary spiritual and political ideas into a prophecy for a new age. This desire to recreate the cosmos is the heart of his work and his psychology...
of original gods, such as Urizen
Urizen
In the complex mythology of William Blake, Urizen is the embodiment of conventional reason and law. He is usually depicted as a bearded old man; he sometimes bears architect's tools, to create and constrain the universe; or nets, with which he ensnares people in webs of law and conventional culture...
, Orc, Los
Los (Blake)
In the mythological writings of William Blake, Los is the fallen form of Urthona, one of the four Zoas. He is referred to as the "eternal prophet" and creates the visionary city of Golgonooza. Los is regularly described as a smith, beating with his hammer on a forge, which is metaphorically...
, Albion
Albion (Blake)
In the complex mythology of William Blake, Albion is the primeval man whose fall and division results in the Four Zoas: Urizen, Tharmas, Luvah/Orc, and Urthona/Los. The name derives from the ancient and mythological name of Britain, Albion.-Sources:...
, Rintrah
Rintrah
Rintrah is a character in William Blake's mythology, representing the just wrath of the prophet. Rintrah first appears in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air" shows him personifying revolutionary wrath...
, Ahania
Ahania
Ahania is the Emanation, or female counterpart, of Urizen, Zoas of reason, in William Blake's mythology. She is the representation of pleasure and the desire for intelligence. Although Urizen casts her out as being the manifestation of sin, she is actually an essential component in Blake's system...
and Enitharmon
Enitharmon
Enitharmon is a major female character in William Blake's mythology, playing a main part in some of his prophetic books. She is, but not directly, an aspect of the male Urthona, one of the Four Zoas. She is in fact the Emanation of Los, also male. There is a complex verbal nexus attached. The Zoa...
. Blake was an important influence on Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
's Thelemic
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...
writings, whose dazzling pantheon of invented deities and radically re-cast figures from Egyptian mythology
Egyptian mythology
Ancient Egyptian religion was a complex system of polytheistic beliefs and rituals which were an integral part of ancient Egyptian society. It centered on the Egyptians' interaction with a multitude of deities who were believed to be present in, and in control of, the forces and elements of nature...
and the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
constitute an invented mythology of their own.
Collaborative efforts
The Cthulhu MythosCthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
of H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
was likewise taken up by numerous collaborators and admirers.
Other modern literature
In this category are the Cthulhu Mythos of Lovecraft and literature by Henry Rider Haggard and George MacDonaldGeorge MacDonald
George MacDonald was a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister.Known particularly for his poignant fairy tales and fantasy novels, George MacDonald inspired many authors, such as W. H. Auden, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. It was C.S...
; the latter two C. S. Lewis praised for their "mythopoeic" gifts.
The repeated motifs of Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
's fictional works (mirror
Mirror
A mirror is an object that reflects light or sound in a way that preserves much of its original quality prior to its contact with the mirror. Some mirrors also filter out some wavelengths, while preserving other wavelengths in the reflection...
s, labyrinths
Labyrinths
Labyrinths is an English-language collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges.It includes "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel", three of Borges' most famous stories. Many of the stories are from the collections Ficciones and El...
, tiger
Tiger
The tiger is the largest cat species, reaching a total body length of up to and weighing up to . Their most recognizable feature is a pattern of dark vertical stripes on reddish-orange fur with lighter underparts...
s, etc.) tantalizingly hint at a deeper underlying mythos and yet stealthily hold back from any overt presentation of it.
The pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
works of Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
and Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard
Robert Ervin Howard was an American author who wrote pulp fiction in a diverse range of genres. Best known for his character Conan the Barbarian, he is regarded as the father of the sword and sorcery subgenre....
contain imagined worlds vast enough to be universes in themselves, as does the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
of Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
, E. E. "Doc" Smith
Lensman
The Lensman series is a serial science fiction space opera by Edward Elmer "Doc" Smith. It was a runner-up for the Hugo award for best All-Time Series ....
and Michael Moorcock
Michael Moorcock
Michael John Moorcock is an English writer, primarily of science fiction and fantasy, who has also published a number of literary novels....
.
T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
's The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
was a deliberate attempt to model a 20th-century mythology patterned after the birth-rebirth motif described by Frazer.
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
's novels deal with various mythologies, and combines them into a single, cohesive world.
Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...
's novels and short stories form an intricate and highly developed mythos, drawing in part on the Lovecraftian, with characters such as the demonic Crimson King
Crimson King
The Crimson King, also commonly known as Los', is a fictional character created by Stephen King. He is the antagonist in the novel Insomnia the main villain due to a plot twist in Black House and one of the main villains in the latter half of Stephen King's Dark Tower series.-Fictional...
and Randall Flag appearing in several (otherwise unrelated) works, as well as a supernatural force known only as "The White". The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower (series)
The Dark Tower is a series of books written by American author Stephen King, which incorporates themes from multiple genres, including fantasy, science fantasy, horror and western. It describes a "Gunslinger" and his quest toward a tower, the nature of which is both physical and metaphorical. King...
series serves as a linchpin for this mythos, connecting with practically all of King's various storylines in one way or another.
Star Maker
Star Maker
-External links:*...
by Olaf Stapledon
Olaf Stapledon
William Olaf Stapledon was a British philosopher and author of several influential works of science fiction.-Life:...
is a rare attempt at a cohesive science fiction mythos.
In film
Frank McConnell, author of Storytelling and Mythmaking and professor of English, University of CaliforniaUniversity of California
The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...
, stated film is another "mythmaking" art, stating: "Film and literature matter as much as they do because they are versions of mythmaking." He also thinks film is a perfect vehicle for mythmaking: "FILM...strives toward the fulfillment of its own projected reality in an ideally associative, personal world." In a broad analysis, McConnell associate the American western movies and romance movies to the Arthurian mythology, adventure and action movies to the "epic world
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
" mythologies of founding societies, and many romance movies where the hero is allegorically playing role of a knight, to "quest" mythologies like Sir Gawain and the Quest for the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
.
George Lucas and the Star Wars series
Filmmaker George LucasGeorge Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
speaks of the cinematic storyline of Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
as an example of modern myth-making. He claims: "With Star Wars I consciously set about to re-create myths and the classic mythological motifs." The idea of Star Wars as "mythological" has been met with mixed reviews by some reviewers and critics: Frank McConnell says "it has passed, quicker than anyone could have imagined, from the status of film to that of legitimate and deeply embedded popular mythology." John Lyden, the Professor and Chair of the Religion Department at Dana College, argues that Star Wars does indeed reproduce religious and mythical themes: specifically, he argues that the work is apocalyptic in concept and scope. The Decent Film Guides Steven D. Greydanus agrees, calling Star Wars a "work of epic mythopoeia". In fact, Greydanus argues that Star Wars is the primary example of American mythopoeia:
"The Force, the Jedi knights, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Princess Leia, Yoda, lightsabers, and the Death Star hold a place in the collective imagination of countless Americans that can only be described as mythic. In my review ofA New Hope I called Star Wars 'the quintessential American mythology,' an American take on King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
, Tolkien, and the samurai/wuxia epics of the East..."
However Lucas's claims about the "mythical" aspects of Star Wars have also been criticized by other film critics (e.g. as "pseudo-mythic Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
hogwash").
George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
recounts that he was consciously influenced by Joseph Campbell's theories as he made the Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
movies.
In music
In classical music, Richard WagnerRichard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's operas were a deliberate attempt to create a new kind of Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), transforming the legends of the Teutonic past nearly out of recognition into a new monument to the Romantic
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
project.
In popular music, George Clinton
George Clinton (funk musician)
George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...
's Parliament
Parliament (band)
Parliament was a funk band most prominent during the 1970s. It and its sister act Funkadelic, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
-Funkadelic
Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American band most prominent during the 1970s. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, began the funk music culture of that decade.-History:...
collective produced numerous concept album
Concept album
In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...
s which tied together in what is referred to as P-Funk mythology
P-Funk mythology
The P-Funk mythology is a group of recurring fictional characters, themes and ideas related in a series of concept albums and live shows, primarily from George Clinton and his founded bands Parliament and Funkadelic....
.
The musical collective
Musical collective
Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared. Such entities have transitioned from the traditional hierarchical configuration that features either a frontman , or a plurality of band members in tension for...
NewVillager constructed a mythology from Joseph Campell's Monomyth
Monomyth
Joseph Campbell's term monomyth, also referred to as the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces...
of which all their music, art, and videos serve to express.
The band Rhapsody Of Fire
Rhapsody of Fire
Rhapsody of Fire is an Italian symphonic power metal band led by Alex Staropoli. Since forming in 1993, the band has released eight studio albums, one live album, two EPs, and a live DVD...
have created and tell the stories of a full-developed fantasy world with tales of epic wars between good and evil, although many elements are taken directly from Tolkien and other authors.
Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian
Blind Guardian is a German power metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. They are often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres...
, the European Power Metal Band, often evoke images from The Lord of the Rings.
In religion
Ideas and new myths drawn from mythopoetic work have been described as valid foundational religious thought in some neopagan organizations. Mythopoeia is considered a significant part of the religious practices of WesternessteWesternesste
Westernesste is a modern Neopagan religious and educational organization whose stated mission is to explore, celebrate and contribute to webs of information, mythology and experience; to provide voice to the Divine within and without; to explore pre- and post-monotheistic and earth based religious...
, a neopagan church.
In popular culture
Comic bookComic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
s have been called the twentieth century's version of the epic
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...
. In
The Mythos of the Superheroes and the Mythos of the Saints, Thomas Roberts observes that:
"To the student of myth, the mythos of the comics superheroes is of unique interest."
"Why do human beings want myths and how do they make them? Some of the answers to those questions can be found only sixty years back. Where did Superman and the other superheroes come from? In his Encyclopedia of the Superheroes, Jeff Rovin correctly observes, “In the earliest days, we called them ‘gods’.”
Superman, for example, sent from the "heavens" by his father to save humanity, is a messiah-type of character in the Biblical
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
tradition. Furthermore, along with the rest of DC Comic's Justice League of America, Superman watches over humanity from the Watchtower
Watchtower
A watchtower is a type of fortification used in many parts of the world. It differs from a regular tower in that its primary use is military, and from a turret in that it is usually a freestanding structure. Its main purpose is to provide a high, safe place from which a sentinel or guard may...
in the skies; just like the Greek gods do from Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus
Mount Olympus is the highest mountain in Greece, located on the border between Thessaly and Macedonia, about 100 kilometres away from Thessaloniki, Greece's second largest city. Mount Olympus has 52 peaks. The highest peak Mytikas, meaning "nose", rises to 2,917 metres...
.
"Jack Kirby's Fourth World
Jack Kirby's Fourth World
"The Fourth World" is the popular name given to a metaseries of interconnecting comic book titles written and drawn by Jack Kirby and published by DC Comics from 1970 to 1973. The characters and concepts were later integrated into the DC Universe....
" series, with the cosmic struggle between Darkseid
Darkseid
Darkseid is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 and was created by writer-artist Jack Kirby....
's Apokolips
Apokolips
In the DC Comics fictional shared Universe, Apokolips is the planet ruled by Darkseid, established in Jack Kirby's Fourth World series. It is also integral to many DC Comics stories. The planet is considered the opposite of New Genesis....
and the gods of New Genesis
New Genesis
New Genesis is a fictional planet in the . This planet, along with Apokolips, is speculated to be near the constellation Orion...
and Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle
Mister Miracle is a fictional superhero published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Mister Miracle #1 and was created by Jack Kirby.-Publication history:...
and Orion as messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
-figures is another good example. Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...
's Sandman series created a mythology around the Endless
Endless (comics)
The Endless are a group of beings who embody powerful forces or aspects of the universe in the DC comic book series The Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. They have existed since the dawn of time and are thought to be among the most powerful beings in the universe...
, a family of god-like embodiments of natural forces like death
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
and dream
Dream
Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The content and purpose of dreams are not definitively understood, though they have been a topic of scientific speculation, philosophical intrigue and religious...
ing.
Role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s often include invented mythologies for their players to interact with. Examples include the Forgotten Realms
Forgotten Realms
The Forgotten Realms is a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Commonly referred to by players and game designers alike as "The Realms", it was created by game designer Ed Greenwood around 1967 as a setting for his childhood stories...
setting of Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
, the world of White Wolf
White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
's Exalted
Exalted
Exalted is a role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing. The game is classified as high fantasy, but may be more accurately described as "mythic fantasy", as the developer specifically avoided drawing on J. R. R. Tolkien, but rather turned to a mixture of world mythologies for inspiration...
, and the Elder Scrolls which boasts a mythology which could be argued is as detailed as Tolkien's. Their computer counterparts, computer role-playing games, sometimes have elaborate fictional universes that continue to be explored over many sequels, such as the best selling Final Fantasy X
Final Fantasy X
is a role-playing video game developed and published by Square as the tenth title in the Final Fantasy series. It was released in 2001 for Sony's PlayStation 2, and will be re-released for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita in 2012...
which along with its sequel Final Fantasy X-2
Final Fantasy X-2
is a console role-playing game developed and published by Square for Sony's PlayStation 2. It was released in 2003 and is the sequel to the best-selling 2001 game Final Fantasy X...
sold 10 million copies and boasts a legion of enthusiasts of its Fictional Universe
Spira (Final Fantasy X)
The fictional events of the Square Enix role-playing video games Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy X-2 take place in a world called . As befits its name, Spira is characterized by cycles and repetition, such as the spiral of death that the world endures, the many spheres found in Spira, the...
.
In the TV series Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
, an invented mythology is an important foundation of the plot. A vast majority of the humans, or Colonials, are polytheists
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
and believe in the gods of Kobol
Kobol
Kobol is the name of a planet in the fictional Battlestar Galactica universe.Within the context of both Battlestar Galactica stories, Kobol is the birthplace and original home of humanity, from which the civilization departed and formed the Twelve Colonies on other worlds...
, whose names and attributes are very similar to those of the Classical gods of Greece
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
and Rome
Roman mythology
Roman mythology is the body of traditional stories pertaining to ancient Rome's legendary origins and religious system, as represented in the literature and visual arts of the Romans...
, such as Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, Athena
Athena
In Greek mythology, Athena, Athenê, or Athene , also referred to as Pallas Athena/Athene , is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, warfare, strength, strategy, the arts, crafts, justice, and skill. Minerva, Athena's Roman incarnation, embodies similar attributes. Athena is...
, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
, Ares
Ares
Ares is the Greek god of war. He is one of the Twelve Olympians, and the son of Zeus and Hera. In Greek literature, he often represents the physical or violent aspect of war, in contrast to the armored Athena, whose functions as a goddess of intelligence include military strategy and...
or Hera
Hera
Hera was the wife and one of three sisters of Zeus in the Olympian pantheon of Greek mythology and religion. Her chief function was as the goddess of women and marriage. Her counterpart in the religion of ancient Rome was Juno. The cow and the peacock were sacred to her...
. One of the religious books of the Colonial canon was written by or named for the prophet Pythia. The Book of Pythia tells the story of the fall of the planet Kobol (where according to legend Humanity had first arisen), the exodus of the Twelve Tribes to their new planets (the Colonies), and the journey of a Thirteenth Tribe to a planet called Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The Cylons
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
, a robot
Robot
A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...
race, believe in one sole god
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
and it has been suggested that the origins of their religion may be in the Temple of Five, a sacred place which appears in Pythia's prophecy and was found by the Colonial and Cylon fleets.
Organizations
The Mythopoeic SocietyMythopoeic Society
The Mythopoeic Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the study of mythopoeia, fantasy and mythic literature. The group focuses primarily, but not exclusively, on works written by J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and C. S. Lewis. These authors were members of The Inklings, an...
exists to promote mythopoeic literature, partly by way of the Mythopoeic Awards
Mythopoeic Awards
The Mythopoeic Awards for literature and literary studies are given by the Mythopoeic Society to authors of outstanding works in the fields of myth, fantasy, and the scholarly study of these areas; the full criteria and description can be read on the Mythopoeic Society's -Mythopoeic Fantasy...
.
See also
- Campaign settingCampaign settingA campaign setting is usually a fictional world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame campaign. A campaign is a series of individual adventures, and a campaign setting is the world in which such adventures and campaigns take place...
- Constructed world
- Fantasy worldFantasy worldA fantasy world is a fictional universe used in fantasy novels and games. Typical worlds involve magic or magical abilities and often, but not always, either a medieval or futuristic theme...
- Fictional universeFictional universeA fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
- LegendariumLegendariumLegendary may refer to:*A hagiography, or study of the lives of saints and other religious figures**The South English Legendary, a Middle English legendary*A legend-Entertainment:*Legendary, an album by Kaysha*Legendary...
- Religion and mythologyReligion and mythologyReligion and mythology differ, but have overlapping aspects. Both terms refer to systems of concepts that are of high importance to a certain community, making statements concerning the supernatural or sacred. Generally, mythology is considered one component or aspect of religion...