The Modern Construction of Myth
Andrew Von Hendy
"... one of the richest, clearest, and acutest surveys to date of the                  course of theorizing about myth from the eighteenth century on. I know of no more                  useful volume on the topic. Despite the postmodern connotations of the title, Von                  Hendy is writing not to expose the concept of myth but simply to show the array of                  ways in which it has been used from time to time and from place to place. A superb                  work." -- Robert A. Segal, University of Lancaster, author of Theorizing about                  MythAndrew Von Hendy offers an integrated critical account of the                  career of myth in modernity. He takes as its starting point some crucial moments in                  the 18th-century reinvention of the concept and then follows the major branches of                  theorizing as they appear in the work of theologians, philosophers, literary                  artists, political thinkers, folklorists, anthropologists, psychologists, and                  others.Von Hendy pursues each of these four fundamental strains                  of theory through the 20th century: the rise of neo-romantic theories in depth                  psychology, modernist literature, and later in religious phenomenology, philosophy,                  and literary criticism; the establishment of folkloristic theory in ethnological                  fieldwork and in classical studies; the growth of ideological theories from Sorel to                  Barthes and Derrida; and the recent ascent of constitutive theories of myth as                  necessary fiction. Finally, Von Hendy examines the work of five theorists who                  attempt to come to terms with the lessons of the ideological critique, yet regard                  myth as a constructive phenomenon.