Mythology of Myth as the Foundation of Postmodern Culture

Abstract

The article questions the appropriateness of using the concept of myth in relation to the XX century culture. The term originated in the German Romantic philosophy and philology. The current use of the concept of myth is mostly connected with the irrational side of reality. The concept of neo-mythologism can be applied to the epoch of Modernism because it preserved a substantial understanding of the myth. Post Modernism, however, understood the myth in a formal way, as an expressive means. This understanding was adopted by semiology and structural anthropology. In the contemporary society, the so-called quasi-myths have become an effective tool of controlling mass consciousness. Unsubstantial quasimyths tend to merge into a simulacrum of the mythology of myth. The article describes this simulacrum and reveals that neo-mythologism as a substance-oriented mentality is not peculiar to Post Modernism. Philologically speaking, today’s myth concerns the key issue of historical poetics, i.e. the relationship between tradition and creativity, where individual creativity is a statement of tradition and national myth. This article was originally published in English as a monograph chapter: Kuznetsov I. V. Mythology of Myth in Twentieth-Century Culture. Philological sciences: Modern scholarly discussions. LvivToruń: Liha-Pres, 2019. P. 64–78.