history and universal psychology (based on analytical psychology), mythological syncretism and pluralism, elements of irony and travesty, the use of cyclic ritualistic mythological reiteration (supported by ritualism) to express universal archetypes, «fluidity» of dramatis personae and easily changeable social roles and masks, elements of absurd aesthetics (the Levy-Bruhl idea of the prelogic contributes to that), etc. Comparison of dramatis personae in «Ulysses» and «Odyssey», transformation of the Irvicker family into Celtic legend heroes, identification'of several generatipns of Biblical heroes in «Joseph», all this lays emphasis on universal reiteration of archetypes and the feeling of insoluble nature of some basic collisions characteristic of a 20th century western man. Contrary to inevitable travesty, everything merges on the mythological level (eg. promiscuous singer Molly and devoted Penelope merge in a single image of the fertility and love goddess; compare: madame Chochat and Venus; fidgety running of wretched Bloom and the wanders of Odyssey the epic hero, etc.). This is stressed by piling up parallels from different mythologies, often resulting in comparison to incompatible personages (Bloom, for example, is not only Odyssey, but at the same time Adam, Moses, Wandering Jew and even Christ) which once more emphasizes the vagueness of boundaries between themes and dramatis personae, the single unaltering essense under various masks, for Joyce it was inanity of history.
These quite modem ideas, in no way adequate to ancient myths, of personalities being levelled off and situations eternally repeated and individual's social isolation in the 20th century community are expressed by spontaneous mythologists like Kafka in other ways as compared to Joyce. There are no mythical parallels, endless reiterations and cyclic death-resurrection myths, Kafka focusses on inability of the hero to change the situation, escape the Process or reach the Castle; Levelling is expressed through clothes and not mythological masks. Contrary to Joyce, Kafka's plot looks like anti-myth; Hunter Grakh dies but is not able to reach the Kingdom of the Dead, the hero of «The Castle» never passes initiation, the hero of «Metamorphosis» unlike totemic myth heroes is hopelessly dissociated from his kin, etc. Alienation phantasies are translated by Kafka as an absurd disruption of communications (information, understanding) between the object and the subject on a metaphysical level (which psychologically takes the form of hero's guilt and socially of his underserved persecutions). But, as it has already been said, the comparison of Joyce and Kafka helps to reveal a purely modernistic aspect in the mythologizing poetics which comes into conflict with the true meaning; of traditional myths.
Mythologizing appears to be internally 'tied with the aesthetics of modernism. However, the poetics of mythcjiogizing has become a definite artistic method (mythological «grid» for riiodem themes at first, then «myth- novels» like «Finnegan's Wake» or «Josieph and his Brothers») and may be employed differently by writers of different outlook and even different creative method. This poetics is first of all the expression of the «horror of history» for Joyce and for T. Mann, who cannot be squeezed into the framework of modernism, and never arts his ties with realism, myth serves for symbolic consolidation of the historical experience of mankind on its way of progress. In «Joseph and/his Brothers» a cyclic moment may be combined with a linear one, identification of heroes with ancestors and gods is additionally viewed from aside as an archaic naive consciousness, as mythical «moon grammar».
Modem Latin American (Marquez and others) and Afro-Asian writers (Kateb Jasin and others) employ the myth poetics supported unlike in western literature by living folklore traditions to express stability of their national models.
Notes
note 1
Литература по истории изучения мифологии небогата. Из относительно новых работ можно рекомендовать кроме содержательной статьи: А. Ф. Лосев, Мифология, – «Философская энциклопедия», т. 3, M., 1964, стр. 457 – 466, обзорный очерк известного голландского германиста: J. de Vries, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie, Munchen – Freiburg, 1961. Много материала по истории мифологии содержится в кн.: Д ж. Коккьяра, История фольклористики в Европе, с предисл. Е. М. Мелетинского, М., 1960, а по изучению мифов в России. в кн.: М. К. Азадовский, История русской фольклористики, тт. I – II, М., 1958 – 1963.
note 2
См.: А. Ф. Лосев, История античной эстетики, тт. I – IV, 1963 – 1975 (там же богатейшая библиография).
note 3
А. Ф. Лосев, История античной эстетики (Софисты. Сократ. Платон), М., 1964, стр. 561.
note 4
Ср.: Л. Баткин, Ренессансный миф о человеке, – «Вопросы литературы» (далее – ВЛ), 1971, № 9, стр.112 – 133.
note 5
Дж. Вико, Основания новой науки об общей природе наций, со вступит, ст. М. А. Лифшица, Л., 1940, стр. 87 (далее ссылки в тексте даны по этому изданию).
note 6
К. Маркс, Ф. Лассалю, 28 апреля 1862 г., – К. Маркс, Ф. Энгельс, Сочинения, изд. 2, т. 30, стр. 512.
note 7
К. Ph. Moritz, Gotterlehre oder mythologische Dichtungen der Alten, Berlin, 1791; G. F. Creuzer, Symbolik und Mythologie der alien Volker, Bd l – 3, Leipzig – Darmstadt, 1836 – 1843; J. von Gorres, Mythen-geschichte der asiatischen Welt, Bd l – 2, Heidelberg, 1810; I. A. Kanne, erste Urkunden der Geschichte oder allgemeinen Mythologie, Berlin, 1908; J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, Gottingen, 1935.
note 8
Ф. Шлегель, История древней и новой литературы, ч. 1 – 2, СПб., 1824 – 1830.
note 9
F. W. von Schelling, Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie, Samtliche Werke, 2 Abt., Bd l, Stuttgart – Augsburg, 1856; его же, Philosophie der Mythologie, – – там же, 2 Abt., Bd 2, Stuttgart, 1857 (ср.: Schellings Werke. Auswahl, hrsg. von 0. Weiss, Bd 3, Leipzig, 1907); Ф. В. Шеллинг, Философия искусства, М., 1966 (ссылки в тексте даны по этому изданию).
note 10
R. Weimann, Literaturwissenschaft und Mythologie. Vorfragen einer methodologischen Kritik, – «Sinn und Form», Berlin, 1967, 2-te Heft (имеется русский перевод этой статьи в кн.: Р. Веиман, История литературы и мифология, М., 1975, стр. 260 – 302).
note 11
M. Мюллер, Сравнительная мифология, – «Летописи русской литературы и древности», т. V, М., 1963; его же. Наука о языке, вып. 1 – 2, Воронеж, 1868 – 1870; A. Kuhn, Herabkunft des Feuers und Gottertrank, Berlin, 1859; его же, Entwicklungsstufen der Mythenbildung, Berlin, 1873; A. De Gubematis, Zoological Mythology, London, 1872; L. W. Schwartz, Der Ursprung der Mythologie, Berlin, I860; W. Mannhardt, Wald – und Feldkulte, Bd l – 2, Berlin, 1875 – 1877; Ф. И. Буслаев, Исторические очерки русской народной словесности и искусства, тт. 1 – 2, СПб., 1861; А. Н. Афанасьев, Поэтические воззрения славян на природу, тт. 1 – 3, М., 1865 – 1869.
note 12
Э. Тэйлор, Первобытная культура, М., 1939; Э. Лэнг, Мифология, М., 1901; A. Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion, vol. 1 – 2, London, 1887. О борьбе Лэнга и «антропологов» со школой М. Мюллера см.: R. M. Dогson. The Eclipse of Solar Mythology, – «Journal of American Folklore» (далее – JAF), 1955, № 68,стр. 393 – 416.
note 13
H. Spencer, Principles of Psychology, London, 1855.
note 14
Ф. Ницше, Рождение трагедии из духа музыки, – Полное собрание сочинений Ф. Ницше, т. 2, М.,1912.
note 15
L. Klages, Von Kosmogonischen Eros, 5 Aufl., Stuttgart, 1951.
note 16
H. Bergson, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, Paris, 1932.
note 17
A. Camus, Le mythe de Sisyphe. Essai sur l'absurde, Paris, 1942.
