Myth: is it merely a dream or is it simply our legacy? We have looked to mythological stories for answers to our heritage and our existence since the beginning of time. These stories tell us who we are and who we will become, but why must we always come back? According to Thomas Moore in Care of the Soul: A Guide For Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life “The great malady of the twentieth century, implicated in all of our troubles and affecting us individually and socially, is ‘loss of soul.’ When soul is neglected, it doesn’t just go away; it appears symptomatically in obsessions, addictions, violence, and loss of meaning…we have lost our wisdom about the soul, even our interest in it… [We] must draw on…past wisdom, taking into account how we live now, to show that by caring for the soul we can find relief from out distress and discover deep satisfaction and pleasure” (xi). Moore continues, “the ultimate cure, as many ancient and modern psychologies of depth have asserted, comes from love…the cure…is love” (14). Therefore, it should be no surprise as to why we search in the depths of myth to give us answers and meaning to our specific era.
To serve this appetite for love, a plethora of mythological stories are being displaced into our modern day society exemplifying the very notion of being “in love with love”. According to Frye, “in every age [people] tend [] to project [their] ideals in some form of romance” (186); which, satisfies our need to “cure” the soul. Mythological stories serve as “a sort of …stage on which to place contemporary characters or [events]” (Eco 68) allowing us the opportunity to fulfill this craving. Therefore, it should come as no surprise as to why we take the mythological story of Eros and Psyche and directly displace it in Cinderella and further supplant it in the story of Bridget Jones Diary.
To serve this appetite for love, a plethora of mythological stories are being displaced into our modern day society exemplifying the very notion of being “in love with love”. According to Frye, “in every age [people] tend [] to project [their] ideals in some form of romance” (186); which, satisfies our need to “cure” the soul. Mythological stories serve as “a sort of …stage on which to place contemporary characters or [events]” (Eco 68) allowing us the opportunity to fulfill this craving. Therefore, it should come as no surprise as to why we take the mythological story of Eros and Psyche and directly displace it in Cinderella and further supplant it in the story of Bridget Jones Diary.
No comments:
Post a Comment