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oai:null:10339/334782026-09-02T12:55:53Zcom_10339_14934col_10339_38132

Leonard, James Wharton 2011-07-14T20:36:03Z 2011 https://wakespace.lib.wfu.edu/handle/10339/33478 This thesis explores one specific way in which mythology is used in Modernist literature--especially focusing on two modern novels, Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano and Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. Drawing on studies by French anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl and on the myth-oriented philosophical texts of Ernst Cassirer, I investigate, in depth, mythological frameworks that exhibit distinctly "premodern" characteristics--involving self-immersion in myth and, most importantly, participation in the mythic. In the process, it becomes clear that such mythological elements have lost potency in the twentieth century, whose "modern" attitude toward myth I take from semiologist Roland Barthes' book Mythologies. Having established this distinction, I then analyze Under the Volcano and Henderson the Rain King as novels which relentlessly address the insufficiency of modern myths, proposing instead a "return" to (that is, a meaningful communication with) premodern mythic ubiquity--a venture that aids each novel's protagonist in his quest for authentic selfhood. en Wake Forest University Bellow Cassirer Henderson Lévy-Bruhl Lowry Volcano Lured by the Mythic: Pursuit of the Primordial in Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King and Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano Thesis Kuberski, Philip Klein, Scott W. Holdridge, Jefferson English forever 10000-01-01 restricted