Mythopoeic thought

About: Mythopoeic thought is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5 publications have been published within this topic receiving 9 citations.

Henri Frankfort, Aby Warburg and ‘Mythopoeic Thought’

Abstract: This is the text of a lunchtime lecture given at the Warburg Institute in the spring of 2004. It formed part of a series given by current members of staff which were devoted to the work of past Warburg scholars, and was intended to introduce the audience - fellows, students and readers at the Warburg - to the work of Henri Frankfort, Director of the Institute from 1949 to 1954. Since Frankfort's interests were very distant from those of the Institute today, his life and work had largely been forgotten by modern Warburgians, and the first third of the lecture was of necessity a rapid account of his career. The remainder of the lecture is an analysis and criticism of the concept of 'primitive thinking' in the work of Frankfort and Aby Warburg. To have rewritten the lecture as an article, taking into account the voluminous literature on Warburg, would have taken more time than I currently have available, and I thank Richard Woodfield for allowing me to publish it in this unrevised form. While the Warburg literature continues to expand apace - see Warburg 2010 for recent references - Frankfort is still undeservedly neglected; the most substantial study to date is Wengrow 1999.

The intellectual adventure of ancient man : an essay on speculative thought in the ancient Near East

Abstract: The people in ancient times the phenomenal world was teeming with life; the thunderclap, the sudden shadow, the unknown and eerie clearing in the wood, all were living things. This unabridged edition traces the fascinating history of thought from the pre-scientific, personal concept of a "humanized" world to the achievement of detached intellectual reasoning. The authors describe and analyze the spiritual life of three ancient civilizations: the Egyptians, whose thinking was profoundly influenced by the daily rebirth of the sun and the annual rebirth of the Nile; the Mesopotamians, who believed the stars, moon, and stones were all citizens of a cosmic state; and the Hebrews, who transcended prevailing mythopoeic thought with their cosmogony of the will of God. In the concluding chapter the Frankforts show that the Greeks, with their intellectual courage, were the first culture to discover a realm of speculative thought in which myth was overcome.

Robert coover's mythopoea: revisiting the biblical text in "the brother"

Abstract: Resumo: No conto “The brother”, Robert Coover rele e reescreve a narrativa em Genesis 6-9. Esta recriacao ficcional questiona significados estabelecidos na narrativa biblica. A mitopia de Coover leva o leitor a reconsiderar a versao oficial apresentada na Biblia, abrindo novas possibilidades de interpretacao para a mitologia crista. A pervasive characteristic of postmodern fiction is the appropriation of prior literary forms that are reworked and re-presented to the reader in new, fresh variants. Such a characteristic is often present in Robert Coover’s writing. The borrowing of myths, legends, and folktales can be identified in many of his novels, plays, and short stories. To Coover such a material represents an essential and necessary “means of navigating through life” (Gado 1973: 152); he sees in myth and mythopoeic thought a constant force to model human experiences. However, he thinks that when the meanings conferred to these systems become rigid, forcing the acceptance of a unique sense of truth, it is necessary to remove the frozen meaning of these forms to exhibit the multiple possibilities behind them. If myths are the agents of stability and the absolute, as Frank Kermode affirms (1966: 39), if “the very end of myths is to immobilize the world”, as Roland Barthes claims (1972: 155), and if “myth possesses the dangerous potential for controlling us” (McCaffery 1982a: 28), Coover seems to be convinced that to struggle against myth on its own ground undermines its supposed rigidity of meaning (Gado 1973: 154), and opens up fissures in the official version.

Henri Frankfort, Aby Warburg and “Mythopoeic Thought”

Abstract: This is the text of a lunchtime lecture given at the Warburg Institute in the spring of 2004. It formed part of a series given by current members of staff which were devoted to the work of past Warburg scholars, and was intended to introduce the audience - fellows, students and readers at the Warburg - to the work of Henri Frankfort, Director of the Institute from 1949 to 1954. Since Frankfort's interests were very distant from those of the Institute today, his life and work had largely been forgotten by modern Warburgians, and the first third of the lecture was of necessity a rapid account of his career. The remainder of the lecture is an analysis and criticism of the concept of 'primitive thinking' in the work of Frankfort and Aby Warburg. To have rewritten the lecture as an article, taking into account the voluminous literature on Warburg, would have taken more time than I currently have available, and I thank Richard Woodfield for allowing me to publish it in this unrevised form. While the Warburg literature continues to expand apace - see Warburg 2010 for recent references - Frankfort is still undeservedly neglected; the most substantial study to date is Wengrow 1999.