To live without myth is to live in an untenable state of cold and objective detachment, a perpetual present devoid of feeling and belonging. Plato defined man as “a being in search of meaning”, and our modern uprootedness, or anomie, may underlie our other, much quieter, pandemic: that of mental illness.
Dr Neel Burton is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College in the University of Oxford, and reading The Meaning of Myth felt precisely like attending a general interest seminar led by such an interestingly polymathic professor. Burton begins by explaining the differences between myths, fables, and legends, goes on to explain the important roles that a culture’s enduring myths play (and how they complement religion and science), and then recounts and dissects twelve of the myths from Ancient Greece that would be at least passingly familiar to a Western reader. I highlighted passages in every chapter, found the whole thing fascinating and accessible, and I would recommend this as a general interest read to anyone. (Note: I read an ARC through NetGalley and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)
Clearly, people in ancient times would not have been as detached from myth as we are today — or think we are, since, in general, we are as blind to our own paradigms as fish to water.
I would be reprinting the entire book here if I tried to share everything that I found so engaging, so I’ll just quote Dr. Burton as a philosopher of modern times:
The myth of Perseus and Medusa is extraordinarily misogynistic in its portrayal not only of Medusa but also of Danaë, Andromeda, and Cassiopeia. Like Medusa, Danaë and Andromeda are victims of abuse made to suffer for the crimes of others. Andromeda suffers for the vanity of her mother Cassiopeia, who measures her worth by her beauty. The treatment of Medusa by the Olympian gods is an epitome of rape culture: assaulted by Poseidon, who thought he had every right, and then blamed and punished for it by Athena in a case of one woman turning upon another to get in with the patriarchy. In fact, Athena and Medusa are not so different. Both represent a pole or extreme of how to deal with the threat of female autonomy, authority, and sexuality. A woman can be either a virgin or a mother, and if she is neither, she must be a whore or a monster. The myth may be three thousand years old, but the attitudes it portrays or betrays are still entrenched: during the 2016 US presidential campaign, Hilary Clinton, like many a “nasty woman”, was compared to Medusa, and her rival Donald Trump to an improbable Perseus.
And as a psychiatrist:
In some cases, a hero’s hamartia can be subtle or complex or even external and no fault of his own — as arguably with Oedipus. When Tiresias reveals his hamartia to him, that he himself is his father’s murderer, Oedipus flies into a rage, which is a common reaction to hearing the truth about oneself and why psychotherapy can take so long.
And, finally, as an oenophile (which I found pretty charming; he employs every opportunity to tie in his love of wine):
If Prometheus gave us fire, Dionysus gave us wine, the inner fire which loosens the mind and dissolves the ego along with all of its problems. Wine brings us together, helps us be together, and be inventive together, as in the Greek symposia and Roman convivia, in which measured drinking could lead to expansive elation and creative conversation and the voicing of disruptive ideas and perspectives. It can be no coincidence that, on all four sides, in all four corners, the borders of the Roman Empire stopped where wine could no longer be made. Life without wine would be a pale shadow of itself, and it is in honour of his gift that I included a chapter on Dionysus in this work.
I learned quite a bit from this short book and would recommend it highly.
